COVER ILLUSTRATION by NICK GALIFIANAKIS WINTER 2005 Commonwealth 5 Correspondence

CAR TALK: IS INSURANCE A WRECK? • COP TALK: ON THE SAME WAVELENGTH?

CommonWealthCommonWealthPOLITICS, IDEAS, AND CIVIC LIFE IN MASSACHUSETTS KINGSKINGS OF OF THETHE HILLHILL

TRAVAGLINITRAVAGLINI && DIMASI:DIMASI: WHATWHAT THEY’RETHEY’RE ABOUTABOUT ROMNEY: WHAT HE’S LEARNED

WINTER 2005 $5.00 MAKING A SCIENCE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE GOV’S HEALTH PLAN: FOUR VIEWS

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 1 CommonWealth MassINC editor chairmen of the board Robert Keough Gloria Cordes Larson LET’S associate editors Peter Meade Michael Jonas, Robert David Sullivan board of directors art director Joseph D. Alviani Harold Hestnes Joanne Jaxtimer Heather Kramer Hartshorn Ian Bowles Andrew J. Calamare Jeffrey Jones design consultant GET Tripp Jones Heather P. Campion Ken Silvia Kathleen Casavant Elaine Kamarck contributing writers Neil Chayet R.J. Lyman Mary Carey, Christopher Daly, Vincent Cipolla Paul Mattera Richard A. Hogarty, John E. McDonough, Geri Denterlein Kristen McCormack REAL! Mark Erlich Melvin B. Miller Neil Miller, Laura Pappano, Robert Preer, Phil Primack, B.J. Roche, Ralph Whitehead Jr., David H. Feinberg Hilary C. Pennington Making Katharine Whittemore Robert B. Fraser Michael E. Porter Chris Gabrieli Mark E. Robinson washington correspondent Massachusetts C. Jeffrey Grogan Charles S. Rodgers Shawn Zeller Steve Grossman Alan D. Solomont Work for You proofreader Raymond Hammond Benaree Wiley Jessica Murphy Bruce Herzfelder issuesource.org coordinator honorary RealTalk is a series of Jacquelyn Benson Mitchell Kertzman, Founding Chairman editorial advisors John C. Rennie, in memoriam conversations about what Mickey Edwards, Ed Fouhy, board of policy advisors Alex S. Jones, Mary Jo Meisner, economic prosperity: Wayne M. Ayers, young professionals and Ellen Ruppel Shell, Alan Wolfe Peter D. Enrich, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Edward publisher Moscovitch, Andrew Sum, David A. Tibbetts working adults can do to lifelong learning: Harneen Chernow, Carole Ian Bowles A. Cowan, William L. Dandridge, John D. make a living, raise a family, sponsorship and advertising Donahue, Michael B. Gritton, Sarah Kass, Rob Zaccardi Leonard A. Wilson safe neighborhoods: circulation Jay Ashe, William J. and build stronger commu- Bratton, Mark A.R. Kleiman, Anne Morrison Emily Wood Piehl, Eugene F. Rivers 3rd, Donald K. Stern nities for us all. Join in the interns civic renewal: Alan Khazei, Larry Overlan, Rebecca Finan, Reshma Trenchil Jeffrey Leigh Sedgwick discussion and become one president & ceo CommonWealth (ISSN pending) is published Ian Bowles of the 1,000 participants quarterly by the Massachusetts Institute director of program development for a New Commonwealth (MassINC), Katherine S. McHugh 18 Tremont St., Suite 1120, Boston, MA 02108. involved in RealTalk. For director of strategic partnerships Telephone: 617-742-6800 ext. 109, information about upcoming fax: 617-589-0929. Rob Zaccardi Volume 10, Number 1, Winter 2005. director of communications RealTalk programs—including Third Class postage paid at Holliston, MA. Michael McWilliams To subscribe to CommonWealth, webmaster our networking events—log become a Friend of MassINC for Geoffrey Kravitz $50 per year and receive discounts on research director on to www.massinc.org or MassINC research reports and invitations to Dana Ansel MassINC forums and events. deputy research director Postmaster: Send address changes to Rachel Deyette Werkema email [email protected]. Circulation Director, MassINC, 18 Tremont St., Suite 1120, Boston, MA 02108. research associate Letters to the editor accepted by e-mail Greg Leiserson Presented by MassINC, at [email protected]. The views expressed director of programs & operations United Leaders and Boston in this publication are those of the authors John Schneider and not necessarily those of MassINC's outreach manager ONEin3 Boston and supported directors, advisors, or staff. Emily Wood by over a dozen Greater Boston director of finance & administration Civic Organizations. MassINC is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charitable David Martin organization. The mission of MassINC is to office manager & development assistant develop a public agenda for Massachusetts Heidy Medrano RealTalk is supported in part by that promotes the growth and vitality of the middle class. MassINC is a nonpartisan, rennie center for education research a generous contribution from evidence-based organization. MassINC’s & policy the New Community Fund. work is published for educational purposes S. Paul Reville, Director and should not be construed as an attempt to Jennifer Candon, Assistant Director influence any election or legislative action. Celine Toomey Coggins, Research Director

2 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 The CITIZENS’CIRCLE MassINC is grateful to the very special individuals whose ideas, advice, and generosity support our work.

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 3 4 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 CommonWealth Volume 10, Number 1

ARTICLES DEPARTMENTS

38 DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION 6 CORRESPONDENCE The cars that clog our roads also drain our wallets, and some are blaming 7 PUBLISHER’S NOTE the state’s convoluted insurance 9 INQUIRIES regulations By Dexter Van Zile MCAS hasn’t erased the need for remedial classes in community 50 THE COURAGE OF THEIR CONVICTIONS colleges; civilian firefighters battle After a rash of overturned prison for benefits; a local author takes sentences, police and prosecutors hope a walk through Boston politics; that new scientific methods can make Harvard students help Somerville justice more certain By Matt Kelly revamp its budgeting process

58 GREAT EXPECTATIONS 19 WASHINGTON NOTEBOOK Long known as ultimate insiders, Power players in the capital are Senate President Robert Travaglini making waves over wind farms and new House Speaker Sal DiMasi and fishing limits say they’re bringing some fresh By Shawn Zeller air to Beacon Hill By Michael Jonas 22 STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT 74 MEETING HIM HALFWAY Women rise in the private sector Gov. Mitt Romney talks about what but stall in politics; oil heat rules he’s accomplished during his first two in New England; Bay Staters shed 74 years and what he plans for the rest pounds but take up smoking; pedes- of his term—and beyond trians are better off in Boston; By Robert Keough Massachusetts as pioneer in public health; seat-belt resistance; DISCUSSION tentative optimism on job creation By Robert David Sullivan

84 CONVERSATION 105 REVIEW 24 STATE OF THE STATES Author Peter Schrag talks about Sarah’s Long Walk chronicles the Spending on public schools and the Hancock case and the slippery first fight for school integration in schoolteachers concept of “adequacy” in education Boston—more than 150 years ago By Robert David Sullivan By Robert Johnson Jr. 93 CONSIDERED OPINION 26 HEAD COUNT ½ Boston’s Villa Victoria shows that 109 TWO BITS The geography of Proposition 2 civic participation is hard to sus- Legislative careers and friendships overrides tain in the best of circumstances begin in the curious Beacon By Robert David Sullivan By Mario Luis Small Hill tradition known as the 29 TOWN MEETING MONITOR freshman bullpen A condo boom forces Salisbury 98 ARGUMENT By James V. Horrigan Any health-care fix must slow to grow up the rapid growth in costs 112 FURTHERMORE By Jesse Hardman By Mitt Romney Can Boston survive without 33 INNOVATIONS the Curse of the Bambino? New threats have public safety 99 COUNTERPOINTS By Francis J. Connolly agencies trying to get on the By John McDonough, Jane Walsh same wavelength and Alan MacDonald, and Jon By Phil Primack Kingsdale

COVER ILLUSTRATION BY NICK GALIFIANAKIS WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 5 correspondence

FULLER DISCLOSURE IN ORDER PUBLIC SCHOOL STUDENTS ARE FOR HANCOCK COMMENTATORS MORE THAN DOTS ON A CHART I read your article in The Boston After reading the Fall 2004 Sympo- Globe (Robert Keough, “The School sium on educational funding and at- Financing Conundrum,”Ideas, Octo- tending the forum sponsored by Com- ber 3, 2004) this morning, and re- monWealth and the Rennie Center viewed the articles you cite from the (“How Much Is Enough?” December fall issue of CommonWealth (Sym- 9), I am saddened by the limited pur- development or community service, posium: The Hancock Case), as well view offered by Robert Costrell (“Wrong intramural sports, and debating teams. as Edward Moscovitch’s article that answer on school finances”). He com- Certainly, the citizens and school appeared in the summer issue of the pares the funding in school districts committees of the higher-spending magazine (“Passing Judgment”). I am that perform at similar proficiency districts do not think these advantages the husband of Judge Margot Bots- rates on the math and English MCAS are wasted money. And a look at ford, and a lawyer myself. tests, then concludes that the district the percentage of students who go on Obviously, the authors of the arti- that spent less represents appropriate to four-year college programs will cles appearing in the symposium, as funding—and that more money is certainly show it to be very high. well as Dr. Moscovitch, are entitled to not needed. Saddest of all, the state has no way their opinions about the Hancock case It is shocking that education is of knowing. The only data the state and the report authored by Judge reduced to an MCAS number in only collects and considers is MCAS data. Botsford. However, it seems to me to two subjects. Lower-spending districts Educational policy should be based be misleading and an example of very may have to eliminate arts programs, on an understanding that behind the poor journalism for your magazine after-school activities, physical educa- dots on Costrell’s charts are children never to mention that two of these tion and health programs, and even with a full range of human needs and authors, Robert Costrell and Edward limit the time spent in social studies interests. Educational policy must Moscovitch, actually testified as expert and science to produce this data. And include assessments, but must not be witnesses for the Commonwealth in the lower-spending district may also so limited. That is why more com- the Hancock case, and that their testi- have a high percentage of dropouts prehensive information was present- mony and the exhibits they proffered who don’t take the MCAS—and there- ed and considered by Judge Botsford (some of which are reproduced ver- fore don’t lower the performance in the Hancock case. Such a limited batim in their articles) were discussed level. analysis is a disservice to those who at some length in the report. This is Often, higher-spending districts struggle to make public schools work significant information that your offer full programming in all areas for all students. readers are entitled to know. and additional opportunities, such as Mary Ann Hardenbergh Stephen Rosenfeld a full range of Advanced Placement Co-chair, Citizens for Public Schools Brookline courses, opportunities for career Boston Put yourself in good company Join the many organizations that support the work of MassINC.

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6 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 publisher’s note

Connecting the dots

very once in a while, I come across people who towns with the basket of goods they seek: affordable know about CommonWealth, but have no idea it housing, good schools, and safe neighborhoods. The is published by MassINC. Others know full well middle-class frontier is moving steadily outward, with that CommonWealth is a MassINC publication, no end in sight. but wonder why the magazine doesn’t focus on All this is happening as the biggest demographic change our research findings. Both sorts of confusion can of our time is bearing down on us. Nearly 2 million Bay be explained by the way MassINC does its work. State baby boomers will start retiring in the next five years. EMassINC pursues its mission along parallel tracks—re- Our recent research report, The Graying of Massachusetts, search, journalism, and civic engagement. Each has its own showed that many will reach that milestone unprepared, strengths. MassINC’s research goes deep, CommonWealth in part because the rules of retirement are rapidly chang- goes broad, and public events reach out. For the most part, ing: fewer traditional pensions, more reliance on 401(k)- this is a good thing. Still, this modus operandi provides few style plans, and shifts in Social Security eligibility and opportunities to step back and integrate the three strands benefits. With savings rates at historic lows, there is rea- of our work. I hope to use this space to do just that. son to think that individuals will have to remain in the Opportunity and financial security in the midst of workforce longer than expected. But we don’t know how sweeping economic change and major demographic shifts quickly the coming retirement wave will start having its are persistent themes of MassINC’s research, journalism, impact on our labor market, which already faces pressure and events. Our New Skills for a New Economy research iden- from cost of living, outmigration, and the skills gap. tified a critical skills gap for a third of our workers as they What does all this mean to the Commonwealth, and to face the more demanding modern workplace. Common- us at MassINC? Are we headed toward calamity? Perhaps, Wealth fleshed out the human face of a changing econo- but not necessarily. The Bay State has been in tough straits my with “Blue Collar Blues,” documenting the decline of before and always pulled out of them, with a mix of luck manufacturing jobs (Spring ’04); “Offshore Currents,” and pluck. Still, we should not leave these things to chance. which explored the spread of offshoring to higher-end For starters, we need to understand better the implications jobs (Summer ’04); and “Technology Upgrade” (Summer of the baby boom generation’s impending retirement. In ’04), a look at IT workers as they tried to adapt to the new the light of more dramatic change on the way, we need to industries of biotechnology and microelectronics. redouble our efforts to attract and retain—and build the These changes in employment are happening at a time skills of—a thriving workforce. We also need to reach out of demographic upheaval. MassINC research has shown and draw young people into civic life. As they put down that our state’s workforce is growing only slowly. Indeed, roots and engage in their communities, our Common- were it not for a steady stream of international immigra- wealth grows stronger and better prepared for change. tion, our labor supply would be shrinking. At the same Massachusetts’s competitive advantage lies in having time, our recent research on interstate migration suggests the most highly educated and skilled workforce in the that while Massachusetts continues to attract highly skilled nation. At the same time, we cannot afford to have Massa- younger workers, we see signs of growing middle-class chusetts become a place where the workers we need cannot flight—to other New England states, as well as Florida, afford to live. Average families are now faced with difficult Arizona, and Georgia. choices if they want to achieve the American Dream of One reason for this flight is the cost of housing. Massa- homeownership, quality schools, economic opportunity, chusetts has a relatively low rate of homeownership, and safe neighborhoods, and quality of life. With a hard-fought CommonWealth’s “Anti-Family Values” (Spring ’02) showed election season behind us, a new year brings new oppor- some of the reasons why: Average families can’t afford tunity to address these challenges—and prepare ourselves average homes anymore because, increasingly, many cities for greater change to come. and towns don’t want them. In a series of maps developed and published in cooperation with the Boston Sunday Globe’s Ideas section, what we see—and our research on commuting bears out—is that families seem to be moving farther and farther away from Boston in order to find Ian Bowles

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 7 ANNOUNCING. . .

A special CommonWealth Forum A NEW PRESCRIPTION Cost, Value, and Competition in Health Care Reform

FEATURING

MICHAEL PORTER COMMONWEALTH HEALTH CARE EXTRA Harvard Business School PROJECT SPONSORS AARP Massachusetts and a panel of distinguished respondents American Hospital Association Opening remarks by Americans for Health Care, a Project of the SEIU Gov. Mitt Romney Associated Industries of Massachusetts Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Beverly Hospital Last spring, CommonWealth’s Health Care Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts Extra gave unprecedented attention to the The Boston Foundation issues of cost, quality, and coverage. Now, in Children's Hospital Boston the wake of new proposals to expand access Delta Dental Plan of Massachusetts to affordable health insurance, one of the Denterlein Worldwide nation’s leading business experts will address Harvard Pilgrim Health Care the role of competition in controlling costs The Health Foundation of Central Massachusetts, Inc. and increasing value for consumers— The Heinz Family Philanthropies including those now uninsured. Massachusetts Council of Community Hospitals Massachusetts Health and Educational Facilities Authority Thursday, February 17 Massachusetts Hospital Association 8-10:30 a.m. Massachusetts League of Community Health Centers Massachusetts Medical Society Federal Reserve Bank of Boston McDermott Will & Emery LLP 600 Atlantic Avenue Neighborhood Health Plan New England Regional Council of Carpenters To RSVP, call (617) 742-6800 ext. 120 Partners HealthCare or e-mail [email protected] Recycled Paper Printing Barbara & Stephen Roop Ropes & Gray LLP William E. & Bertha E. Schrafft Charitable Trust Tufts Health Plan

8 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 inquiries

“It’s sort of disappointing that the students that come For MCAS passers, after passing MCAS simply aren’t performing any better than the students before,”says Hartleb. demand for remedial Of the 14 other community colleges in the state, only three could provide similar data. The ones that did also find that students who passed MCAS in receiving their high courses remains high school diplomas require remedial education at rates little by reshma trenchil changed from those who came before. For example, at Bristol Community College, the percentage of entrants ore than a decade after the Education Reform Act, placing into a remedial algebra course was 92 percent in and two years since passing MCAS became a 2001; by 2004, the percentage had declined just slightly, to graduation requirement for high school students, 87 percent. In writing, 43 percent required remedial help in few of the grim prophecies of widespread failure 2001, 39 percent in 2004. have come to pass. In 2004, the number of stu- Some community college educators say they’ve seen dents who were denied a diploma for not passing some improvement in reading and writing among students MMCAS stood at 2,582, while those who cleared the MCAS in the post-MCAS era, but that math preparation is as poor hurdle in time to graduate numbered 58,756, for a passing as ever. rate of 96 percent. “Not a lot of years have passed, but I can safely say that Amid the anxiety over those who were expected to fail our entering students have better English preparation,”says MCAS,however,the spotlight never quite reached those who Sandra Kurtinitis, president of Quinsigamond Community passed. Are students who get over the MCAS bar better College, in Worcester.“In the math area, we have really seen prepared for college than their predecessors? no change.” David Hartleb, president of Northern Essex Community Education Commissioner David Driscoll acknowledges College, says they are not. Hartleb examined data from that, at the current standard, the MCAS cutoff is no guar- college placement tests at Northern Essex, which has antee of college readiness. “It’s a minimal standard,” says campuses in Lawrence and Haverhill, from 2001 to 2004. He Driscoll.“It really brought the bottom up, if you will.” found that students tested at roughly the same levels of But up to what level? In determining if a student requires ability in math and English in 2003 and 2004 as they did in 2001 and 2002. The percentage of students who needed THE TEST DOES NOT GUARANTEE to be placed into remedial, or “developmental,” courses remained at comparable levels over the four years. READINESS FOR COLLEGE. In 2001, before the MCAS graduation requirement took effect, 87 percent of new high school graduates (not count- developmental education, community colleges in Massa- ing those who came back to college years later) entering chusetts use Accuplacer, one of seven college placement Northern Essex were placed in remedial math, 85 percent tests approved by the federal government.“We have a long in 2002. In 2003, with incoming high school graduates who experience with it and we know that if students score the were all MCAS-certified, a whopping 98 percent required re- correct scores, they will do well in college, and if they don’t, medial math; in 2004, 86 percent of the entering class placed they won’t do well,”says Hartleb. into developmental math—a portion similar to pre-MCAS Still, Accuplacer is not MCAS, raising questions about years. whether the two tests are testing the same abilities. “It A smaller subset of entering Northern Essex students wouldn’t surprise me if [Accuplacer] was testing for knowl- required remedial help in reading and writing, but it edge that might or might not be included in the [state cur- remained largely unchanged post-MCAS. In reading, 35 riculum] frameworks,” which MCAS reflects, observes percent of entrants were placed into developmental reading Andrew Calkins, executive director of MassInsight Educa- courses in 2001, and 37 percent in 2002. For those who came tion, a nonprofit research and advocacy group. “On the to Northern Essex after passing MCAS, 33 percent placed other hand, if the standards in Massachusetts are as good as in remedial reading in 2003, 37 percent in 2004. In writing, they are supposed to be and if the tests are as good as they 21 percent were assessed as needing help in 2001; in 2004, are supposed to be, then the kind of skills that students the figure was 24 percent. should have if they do pretty well on the MCAS should show

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 9 inquiries

up on any other test that is worth its salt.” international and national tests. With respect to MCAS, But it could also be that MCAS, at least at the current Achieve concluded that the current passing grade of 220 rep- passing level, is no evidence of college readiness.“I think it resents competency on the seventh-to-ninth-grade level. is fair to say we don’t know enough yet about the correla- That MCAS is administered to 10th-grade students may tion between MCAS scores and success in college,” says also contribute to a lack of alignment with college-level Paul Reville, executive director of the Rennie Center for skills. The Achieve report suggests that states should develop Education Research & Policy at MassINC. 12th-grade assessments that better predict college-level Driscoll agrees that MCAS and AccuPlacer might be out capabilities. But Calkins disagrees, saying that testing in of alignment.“We should do a correlation between the two. 12th grade would leave no time to help those students who fail the test. ONE REPORT SUGGESTS THE “The current model is fine,” says Calkins. “We just need to keep raising our expectations.” To him, raising ADDITION OF 12TH-GRADE TESTS. expectations means raising the passing score. “We don’t believe right now that the MCAS 220 is sufficiently high I think that’s something we ought to do,”he says.“MCAS is to guarantee that the student will be successful in college,” minimal, so AccuPlacer would be hopefully requesting a he says. higher standard.” Until passing MCAS does mean a student is prepared for In June, a study by Achieve Inc., a nonprofit group es- post-secondary work, community colleges like Hartleb’s tablished by state governors and business leaders to support will remain in the remedial-education business, even for standards-based education reform, raised questions about state-approved high school graduates. For the foreseeable that very point. They compared state tests from Massachu- future, he says, “the considerable effort that we put into setts, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, and Texas with developmental education will continue unabated.”

10 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 inquiries

Benefits battle puts civilian firefighters in the spotlight by erik arvidson

n the day that 31-year-old Martin McNamara died in the basement of a Lancaster apartment blaze, few people on Beacon Hill gave much thought to what happens to a volunteer firefighter’s family if he dies in the line of duty. Yet there were 10,000 other volunteer and “call”firefighters across Massachusetts on Othat November 2003 day ready to respond—and risk life and limb—if the alarm went off. On November 2, voters in Lancaster rejected, by a 16-vote margin, a 7 percent, one-time property tax override that would have purchased a $650,000 annuity for McNamara’s Volunteer firefighters respond to a town meeting in Lancaster. widow, Claire, and three children. The public outcry that followed gave new life to legislation—shelved for years at man of the Public Service Committee, says what Bosley is the State House—that would grant death benefits to the proposing is an open-ended benefit to surviving families survivors of fallen volunteer and call firefighters. The without a funding source. Professional firefighters pay into family’s plight has also put a spotlight on volunteer fire a local contributory retirement system, and if they die in the departments in small towns throughout Massachusetts, line of duty, their family receives an annuity equal to two- which are finding it more difficult to recruit people willing thirds of their annual wages, plus $312 per child each month. to put their lives on the line. But volunteer firefighters don’t have any employment ben- One of the long-stalled bills, filed by Rep. Daniel Bosley, efits and don’t have a retirement system to contribute to. a North Adams Democrat, would provide an annual bene- Koczera, whose committee referred Bosley’s bill to a fit equal to two-thirds of the average salary of a full-time study last session, says it would be problematic if Bay State firefighter or police officer “in the local area,”plus $2,600 for communities—especially smaller towns with limited each child under 18 (the same payout schedule that would have been used for the McNamara family annuity rejected FULL-TIME FIREFIGHTERS MAY BE by Lancaster voters). Under the bill, the payments would be administered by the state’s pension board. Claire McNamara SOFTENING THEIR STANCE. and her children received two one-time death benefits: $100,000 from the state and $267,000 from the federal financial resources—were mandated to pay death benefits government, in addition to private donations. for volunteer firefighters when there is no system set up for Bosley says volunteer firefighters should have certain them to contribute to a retirement fund. benefits guaranteed. McNamara, he says,“died in the service The Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts, which of his community.”When it comes to these part-time pub- represents 12,000 firefighters statewide, has in the past op- lic safety workers—“call” firefighters generally receive a posed legislation expanding benefits for volunteer and call small, per-call stipend as their only payment—“there is an firefighters. However, that position appears to have softened implicit contract between the town and the employees,”he in light of the Lancaster vote. says. Bosley thinks communities with volunteer fire depart- “Every call and volunteer firefighter killed in the line of ments ought to be able to “opt in”to a pension system,spread- duty, their family should receive a pension for their sacri- ing the liability among a group of municipalities. fice,” says Robert McCarthy, the union president. “They But Rep. Robert Koczera of New Bedford, House chair- paid the ultimate sacrifice. That community owes that fire-

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE TELEGRAM & GAZETTE WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 11 12 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 inquiries

fighter their due.” teer,”says Holyoke Fire Chief David LeFond, head of the fire McCarthy thinks it should be up to the city or town chiefs association. “If he responds to a call, and he doesn’t where the volunteer firefighter works to fund the pension. come out, someone has to be accountable. If Lancaster “The federal government gives money, the state gives money, doesn’t want to be accountable, we should file legislation.” and the local communities should,”says McCarthy.“It’s all Volunteer firefighters have also lobbied for disability a partnership.” benefits, saying that an injury during a call could limit their But some partners may be more equal than others. Sen. ability to keep a full-time job. Stephen Brewer, a Barre Democrat, says it’s clear that full- At year’s end, town officials in Lancaster are working with time firefighters view themselves as a notch above their lawmakers and firefighters to determine how to provide for volunteer counterparts. the McNamaras. A group of central Massachusetts legisla- “There is a great dichotomy between the professional tors has proposed earmarking $650,000 from the state’s firefighters’ union and the volunteer call firefighters,” says pension system for the family. And Gov. Mitt Romney has Brewer, who represents 29 mostly rural communities. “It’s filed legislation to allow the town to provide health insur- not a secret that the professional firefighters can be a little ance coverage to Claire McNamara and the children. If the protective of their turf.” measure receives the approval of the Legislature, it would Brewer has proposed giving the Massachusetts Call/ then be decided at a special election in Lancaster. Volunteer Firefighters Association a seat on the Massachu- Meanwhile, lawmakers and volunteer firefighter leaders setts Fire Training Council, but the professional firefighters are worried that it will become more difficult for volunteer have objected. departments to survive without either accidental death The Fire Chiefs Association of Massachusetts has en- coverage or disability benefits. Lawrence Holmberg, presi- dorsed a pension system for volunteer and call firefighters. dent of the Massachusetts Call/Volunteer Firefighters “A firefighter is a firefighter, whether they’re paid or volun- Association, says recruitment of volunteer firefighters is a

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 13 inquiries

nationwide problem, reflecting a vanishing way of life. “The family farms are gone. The local mills are gone. We’re also more of a commuter society,”Holmberg says.“We still have to be on call 24/7, 52 weeks a year.” And the rural communities that depend on civilian firefighters have nowhere else to turn. “Where will we be if we can’t get young people to join the volunteer fire service to protect our people and property?” wonders Brewer. “What is the wife of one of these young men going to say if we’re not going to provide for her if he is killed?”

Erik Arvidson is State House reporter for the Lowell Sun.

Somerville counts on wonks-in-training for budget overhaul by robert preer

t was an unlikely scene last fall, as 60 students from a graduate course on budgeting at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government descended on Somer- ville City Hall and its departmental outposts. Divided into teams of four or five, students sat with firefighters at their station houses and hopped on trucks when Icalls came in. Some were at the elbows of election officials at polling places on November 2. Others sat with senior police officers going over arrest procedures. This curious collaboration—all the more striking be- CHRIS & JEAN EGAN FAMILY cause of Harvard’s rarified reputation and Somerville’s FOUNDATION sometimes unsavory past—was designed to introduce to the city a new form of financial management known as activ- “The greatest good we can do for others is ity-based budgeting. The student teams were undertaking not just to share our riches with them, but to an exercise known as activity mapping—trying to determine reveal theirs to themselves.” —Anonymous exactly what municipal departments do and how they do it. The information would be used in a new budgeting process Providing educational opportunities meant to direct resources where they are most needed, not for families in need, to break free from just where they’ve always gone. generations of poverty and realize the “They are a very energetic group of kids,”says Fire Chief dream of self-sustainability and prosperity. Kevin Kelleher.“After our first meeting, I came into my office the next day and had five different e-mails from them.” 501(c)3 Non-Profit Corporation The project came about as a result of a seminar the 116 Flanders Road, Ste. 2000, Westborough, MA 01581 Kennedy School held more than a year ago for new mayors TEL (508) 898-3800 FAX (508) 898-3005

14 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 inquiries

from around the country. Professor Linda Bilmes spoke about activity-based budgeting to the group, which included Somerville’s Joseph Curtatone. The alderman who had just been elected mayor was so fascinated that he followed Bilmes to her next class. After subsequent talks, the two hit upon the plan to use her students to bring activity- based budgeting to Somerville. Activity-based budgeting contrasts sharply with the standard line-item method, which typically starts with last year’s numbers and goes up or down slightly, depending on projected revenue. Activity- based budgeting starts by identifying functions that organizations perform, then breaking out their cost. For example, if a city picks up roadkill, there are the salary and benefits costs of the employees Linda Bilmes and Mayor Joseph Curtatone: unlikely allies for budget reform. who do the scooping up, their supervisors, the expense of disposal of the carcasses, plus the cost of vehicles, ing a city,”says Bilmes.“It can be a powerful tool.” insurance, fuel, shovels, and so on.When the functions and The first step is to dissect the functions of government their costs are determined, more thoughtful choices can be and figure out exactly what departments do. This is a very made about how to spend money. labor-intensive process, which was where the Harvard stu- “It gives you a different way of thinking about manag- dents came in. To encourage the 97 students in the class to

HE EARLY EDUCATION FOR ALL CAMPAIGN salutes the Massachusetts State Legislature T and Governor Mitt Romney for their leadership and commitment to Massachusetts’ young children and families. The historic legislation creating the new Board and consolidated Department of Early Education and Care truly lays the foundation for “early education for all.”

On behalf of Massachusetts 240,000 preschoolers, thank you!

www.earlyeducationforall.org

This space generously donated by The Schott Foundation for Public Education.

MEGHAN MOORE WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 15 inquiries

participate, Bilmes offered them a choice: Commit to going “It was a very positive experience,” says Dan Black, 27, to Somerville once or twice a week or write a term paper. It who was assigned to the police department.“They worked was, for many students, a no-brainer. well with us. We really like these guys.” “I had figured maybe 10 or 15 would show up,” says The department heads, in turn, got help from students Bilmes.“We had 60. It was overwhelming.” with plenty of life experience. Most of those at the Kennedy The project did not cost Somerville a dime. The students’ School are mid-career professionals who have spent qual- labor was free, and a grant from the Kennedy School’s ity time outside the cloistered walls of academia. The bud- Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston covered the cost of geting class included former teachers, doctors, accountants, the students’ transportation. and Peace Corps volunteers. Some of them had even spent Curtatone says the students’ work has been exemplary, time in municipal government. and he is confident his administration will be able to deliver Not every city in Massachusetts can find 60 graduate an activity-based budget to the Board of Aldermen in the students to overhaul their finances for free, but the Bay spring for the next fiscal year. State’s many colleges and universities should not be over- It helped that the mayor gave strong signals to officials looked as resources, says Curtatone, who has tapped into the in his administration to cooperate with the students.“It was Kennedy School in other ways. Charles Euchner, the former one of the criteria for being one of my department heads,” executive director of the Rappaport Institute, served on says Curtatone. Curtatone’s transition team and got the Somerville mayor Harvard officials are proud of their students’ work and hooked on CitiStat, a system of tracking delivery of mu- confident they learned plenty on their field trips to nicipal services developed by the city of Baltimore, which Somerville.“You can’t give A’s to everyone necessarily,”says Curtatone wants to adapt for his city. Brendan Dallas, Bilmes’s teaching assistant. But “we have 60 “Mayors should take advantage of these great institu- students, and we haven’t had a single complaint.” tions,”says Curtatone.

16 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 inquiries

A WALK THROUGH FOUR CENTURIES OF BOSTON POLITICS

Sadly, Boston’s Duck Tours do not pass what former House Richmond’s book also provides mentionable details about Speaker Thomas Finneran is said to have called “the best places that Bostonians may not think of as historic sites. goddam bar in the world.” To find such landmarks, it helps If you’re having drinks at the upscale Federalist Restaurant to have a copy of Clint Richmond’s book Political Places of and Bar on Beacon Street, you can remark that the building Boston, which was published just in time for the Democratic housed the Boston School Committee during the busing crisis National Convention last summer. Author and publisher Rich- of the 1960s and ’70s. If you prefer the libations at the mond, who has also produced a guidebook to the Mohawk nearby Parker House, you can point out that Ho Chi Minh Trail, identifies the Eire Pub in Dorchester’s Adams Village was a “cook’s helper” there in 1913, around the time that not only as Finneran’s favorite watering hole but as a favored the hotel was invaded every November by “mattress voters” spot for political appearances, ranging from President Ronald (non-residents brought into Boston by ward bosses to vote on Reagan in 1983 and presidential nominee Bill Clinton in Election Day), many of whom brought their own bedding. 1992 to Mitt Romney in 2002. Richmond also has found some striking art to accompany Political Places includes concise histories of such down- his text, including photos showing the destruction of the town sites as Faneuil Hall, the Beacon Hill building that West End in the late 1950s. The entry on Boston’s subway once housed John F. Kennedy’s bachelor pad, and the for- shows what would have happened if “streetcar king” Henry mer Pilgrim Theater in Boston’s former Combat Zone, but it M. Whitney had been successful. After seeing this, you also directs to you to the James Michael Curley Mansion may never complain about the Green Line again. in Jamaica Plain (with its shamrock shutters, which Curley Political Places of Boston is in area bookstores, or you claimed—falsely—to be the cause of complaints from a can order it online at www.muddyriverpress.com. Yankee neighbor). —ROBERT DAVID SULLIVAN

Save the Date Second Annual Commonwealth Humanities Lecture

March 31, 2005, 7:30PM | National Heritage Museum, Lexington, MA

Join MassHumanities and MassINC and the second annual Commonwealth Humanities Lecture. This prestigious event recognizes a significant contribution to the study of public life and civic affairs in the Commonwealth. The program is free and open to the public and a reception in honor of the award recipient will follow the lecture.

For a transcript of Dr. Michael Sandel’s inaugural Commonwealth Humanities Lecture, log on to www.massinc.org/events_forums. For more information and directions to the National Heritage Museum, visit www.massinc.org or www.mfh.org.

If you can read this

you can help someone who can’t.

CHECK THE BOX ON YOUR VERIZON PHONE BILL TO SUPPORT LOCAL LITERACY. Check YES by the Verizon Reads box and automatically donate $1 a month to Verizon Reads, a public charity that supports literacy programs in your area. Contributions can also be made via the World Wide Web at superpages.com.SM For more details just visit www.verizonreads.org. If reading this was enlightening for you, imagine what a lifetime of literacy could do for someone else. Just check the box.

Make progress every day

18 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 washington notebook

Waterworld Fishing limits and wind farms make for rough seas by shawn zeller

hether over wind farms established by Congress in 2000 and or fishing restrictions, the appointed by President George W. waters off the Massachu- Bush. The commission sharply criti- setts coast are roiling with cized the states’ and the federal gov- controversy. But the real ernment’s oversight of the oceans, and waves are made in Wash- it called for wide-ranging regulatory ington, DC, where these reform under the aegis of a National Wand other ocean-related issues will be Ocean Council. rium on offshore projects sought by decided by a cast of characters with There’s a lot at stake. Ocean-relat- wind-farm opponents. The commis- few ties to the Bay State. Among the ed businesses contribute more than sion said “there was too much ambi- players to watch: former House major- $115 billion to the US economy and guity in the current system that could ity leader Dick Armey, a conservative support more than 2 million jobs, slow down commercial interests and Texan who now works for one of the but they are now seriously threat- development offshore,” says Rodgers. largest lobbying firms in the capital; ened. According to the commission’s “They called for a streamlined ap- Sen. Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republi- report, more than 25 percent of the proach, which we strongly support.” can and new chairman of the Senate world’s major fish stocks are “overex- But Andrew Rosenberg, a profes- Commerce, Science, and Transporta- ploited.” sor of natural resources at the Uni- tion Committee; and Tom Allen, a The ocean commission wants to versity of New Hampshire and a Democratic congressman from Maine. improve the governance of federal member of the commission, says that Stevens is expected to introduce waters (waters within three miles of the commission agreed with wind legislation to reauthorize the 1976 the coast are under state control) to farm opponents that the existing reg- Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Con- cover the siting of offshore enterprises ulatory system is not designed for servation and Management Act, the such as wind farms and aquaculture such projects. Currently, the Army law governing fisheries management facilities. To that end, the National Corps of Engineers is the lead federal in federal waters. Armey will be lob- Ocean Council would appoint a lead agency responsible for passing judg- bying on behalf of Cape Wind federal agency to oversee such pro- ment on the wind farm plan. In Associates, the company seeking to build a wind farm in Nantucket Both sides of the wind-farm debate Sound. And Allen, co-chairman of the House Ocean Caucus, has introduced say the existing rules come up short. a sweeping, if sketchy, bill that could affect everything from fishing regula- jects—likely the National Oceanic November, the corps released a draft tions to offshore developments such and Atmospheric Administration. environmental impact statement as the proposed wind farm. Whether this arrangement would indicating that the project would “Ocean policy is too uncoordinat- thwart or encourage projects such as reduce energy costs in Massachusetts ed and confused,” says Allen. “There Cape Wind’s is unclear. Both propo- without significant damage to the are too many agencies and, frankly, nents and opponents of the wind farm environment. The public comment too many congressional committees claim that the commission report period on the lengthy document has that all have a piece of the oceans.” favors their cause. Cape Wind spokes- been extended to February 24. Backing Allen in this assessment is man Mark Rodgers notes that the The corps’ authority over the Cape a report issued in September by the commission urges a speedier regula- Wind application stems from the US Commission on Ocean Policy, tory process, rather than the morato- 1899 Rivers and Harbors Act, which

TRAVIS FOSTER WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 19 was intended to prevent obstacles to O’Neill III; former Texas Republican Susan Nickerson, executive direc- navigation. But with this first-in-the- congressman Thomas Loeffler; and tor of the Alliance to Protect Nan- nation offshore wind farm,“there are Guy Martin, a former Interior tucket Sound, says she thinks the a lot of other things to think about” Department official and lawyer with wind-farm issue will be back before in addition to keeping shipping lanes the firm Perkins Coie. Cape Wind Congress this year. “Our point is that clear, says Rosenberg. These include has followed suit by retaining Armey, Nantucket Sound is a proving ground, the aesthetics of the project and the now with Piper Rudnick, and a team and national energy policy is starting requirements that should be placed of top-tier advocates. here,” she says. “It needs to be done on a company for use of a public The behind-the-scenes battle has right, and it needs to be addressed at resource—such as fees, conditions of occasionally spilled out into the open. the national level.” use, and length of lease, all issues in In October, Sen. Edward Kennedy— which the Army engineers have no who would be able to see the proposed expertise. “The current law is not windmills from his family com- nother point of contention in adequate,” Rosenberg says. pound in Hyannisport—was joined the waters off Massachusetts Whether or not it’s because the law in his opposition to the wind farm by A has to do with fishing, the is inadequate, the Cape Wind debate Senate Armed Services Committee regulation of which the ocean com- has been conducted, at least in part, Chairman John Warner, a Virginia mission called inadequate as well. The in the corridors and cloakrooms of Republican. Warner, who has vaca- existing framework is governed by Congress. The principal opponent of tioned on the Cape for years, tried to the Magnuson-Stevens Act, which has the project, the Alliance to Protect slip an amendment halting the pro- been stringent enough that talk of its Nantucket Sound, has hired a team of ject into a Defense Department “inadequacy” makes fishermen ner- lobbyists including O’Neill & Asso- spending bill. But Armey helped con- vous. Where Stevens will come down ciates, the firm run by former House vince House Republicans to scuttle in reauthorizing the law that bears his Speaker Tip O’Neill’s son Thomas the provision. name is an open question. In Alaska,

This space generously donated by The Boston Sand & Gravel Foundation.

20 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 regulation of fisheries has been less stantial recovery within 10 years, a contentious than in Massachusetts, ruling that forced the council to put where commercial trawlers have in place harsh new restrictions. fought bitterly with small-boat fish- “To say that stocks have to recover ermen and environmentalists. in 10 years, that’s an arbitrary num- The commission had some praise ber,”says Frulla.“It has no grounding Trusted by the for the regional fishery councils in biology.” working press since 1910 established under Magnuson-Stevens Also caught in the debate are and administered by the National small fishermen, such as those repre- Marine Fisheries Service, but it also sented by the Cape Cod Commercial charged that the councils have Hook Fishermen’s Association. They’re For 90 years, the News Service “allowed overexploitation of many not too small to have a Washington has been providing the state’s fish stocks.” The report recommends lobbyist, however: Jeffrey Pike, a most influential leaders detailed, giving the scientific boards that longtime aide to former congressman impartial and accurate coverage advise the regional fishery councils Gerry Studds and also a former com- of the Massachusetts Legislature. more authority to set fishing limits; it mercial fisherman out of Chatham. also suggests reducing the represen- Pike says that his clients have an inter- tation of the fishing industry on est in the strongest possible resurgence Today, the News Service serves regional councils. of their favored catch before full-scale as a virtual State House news Those proposals sound good to harvesting is resumed, and he argues bureau on your desktop. environmentalists. Currently, “the that the status quo is just fine.  top quality news coverage fox is guarding the chicken house,” “The small guys are the first to feel  says Ted Morton, federal policy direc- the pinch,” he says. “They rely heavily gavel-to-gavel coverage of tor for the environmental group on cod. They don’t have the luxury of the House & Senate Oceana. He says that fishing interests, chasing other fish [species] or travel-  the best available schedule through their representation on the ing wide areas to search for fish…. of daily events fishery councils, “are making science They want to make sure that the con-  examination of emerging and conservation decisions when they servation ethic of Magnuson is issues in state government have an inherent conflict of interest.” retained.”  unique coverage of the But commercial fishermen say Allen’s bill is intended to respond Governor’s Council that the fishing limits imposed last to the full range of ocean regulation  fully searchable archives year by the councils show how little issues raised by the commission, com- back to 1987 influence their industry has now. mercial fishing and offshore develop-  remote access to press David Frulla, a Washington, DC, ment projects alike. But as of now, his releases, archived to 1997 attorney who represents the Trawlers “Oceans Conservation, Education,  Survival Fund (a coalition of ground- and National Strategy for the 21st audio feeds from state fishermen out of New Bedford) and Century Act” is short on details. government events the Portland-based Associated Fisheries “The whole goal of introducing this  photo archives and photos of Maine, argues that the ocean com- legislation was to put something out on demand mission’s recommendations would there and get a reaction because you  issue-specific alerts delivered further damage already-hurting can’t write legislation in a vacuum,” to your email inbox Massachusetts fishermen. Rather says the Maine congressman, who than create a new regulatory struc- plans to file a more detailed proposal ture, he says, “Sometimes it’s better later this year. FREE TRIAL SUBSCRIPTION to tune up what you have.” In the meantime, various interests To subscribe, or for more In Frulla’s view, fishing regulation with a stake in maritime manage- information, call 781.899.9304 would be improved by giving fishery ment will attempt to use the swirling councils more authority over the pace political waters to their advantage. of recovery for damaged fish stocks. “There is a convergence going on The State House, Room 458 In Massachusetts, he says, stocks around the need for better ocean man- Boston, MA 02133 were already bouncing back last year agement,” says wind-farm opponent PHONE: 617.722.2439 when a federal court ruled that the Nickerson. “The Cape Wind project www.statehousenews.com Magnuson-Stevens Act required sub- undermines that.” I

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 21 statistically significant by robert david sullivan

WOMEN IN THE OFFICE, MEN IN THE CLASSROOM According to the Institute for Women’s Policy Research, Massachusetts ranks second in LESS FAT, MORE TOBACCO the percentage of employed Massachusetts dropped from fifth to women who hold “managerial or sixth in the United Health Foundation’s professional” jobs. In the Bay annual “State Health Rankings,” re- State, 38.3 percent of working leased in November, and the state went women are in such positions, second against national trends in at least two only to Maryland’s 41.3 percent. Every categories. While the incidence of state in the Northeast beats the national obesity went up from 22.1 percent of average of 33.2 percent; Idaho finishes the US population in 2003 to 22.8 last with 24.6 percent. Massachusetts also percent last year, it went down in the ranks second to Maryland in median annual earnings for women ($35,800 a Bay State from 18.3 percent to 16.8 year in the Bay State). On other economic measures, there’s more room for percent—making us the healthiest improvement. Massachusetts ranks 13th in the percentage of businesses that state in the nation on the fat score. are women-owned (26.6 percent) and 17th in the earnings ratio between The UHF was less pleased with our full-time female and male workers. (Women make 76.5 percent of what record on cigarettes. Nationally, the men make, not as good at the 83.4 percent in first-place Hawaii but significantly percentage of adults who smoke better than the 69.3 percent in 46th-place New Hampshire.) As for the political dropped from 23.0 percent in 2003 to arena, Massachusetts is a lowly 34th in the percentage of elected offices held 22.0 percent last year, but in Massa- by women—with Washington state and New Jersey holding the top and chusetts the rate went up slightly, bottom spots, respectively. from 18.9 percent to 19.1 percent. But according to the National Education Association, Massachusetts leads That figure was still the seventh-low- the nation in busting the stereotype of schoolteaching as a profession for est in the country, but we seem to have women. In the Bay State, 37.9 percent of public school teachers are men—well hit the ceiling (or floor) while other above second-place Kansas, where 33.6 percent are men. The bottom 13 states states are still reducing cigarette use. are all in the South; in last place South Carolina, only 17.5 percent of public (In Hawaii, the rate fell from 21.0 school teachers are men. percent to 17.2 percent last year.) The strong showing of Massachu- THERMOSTATISTICS setts overall in the UHF report was Those long trucks delivering home heating oil, so familiar to New Englanders, have become helped by the lowest rate of occupa- almost as exotic as candlepin bowling alleys in the rest of the country. According to new Census tional deaths in the country (2.5 per 100,000 workers) and the second low- Bureau figures, all six New England states lead the nation in the percentage of households est rate of motor vehicle deaths (0.9 that use oil heat. In Massachusetts, 38.3 percent of households rely on oil—far above per 100 million miles driven). The the national average of 8.6 percent, but below the other five states in the state’s worst showing was in violent region. (In Maine, the figure is a staggering 79.2 percent of house- crime (484 incidents per 100,000 holds.) Outside of New England, the percentage drops rapidly; in residents), where we placed 33rd. nearby New Jersey, for example, only 17.4 percent of households use oil. Nationally, 57.0 percent of homes use gas (versus 46.6 percent in Massachusetts), and 31.3 percent use electricity (versus 13.6 percent here).

22 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 TRAVIS FOSTER WALK SIGNALS The Surface Transportation Policy Project named Boston as the safest large metro area for pedestrians in 2002 and 2003. There were 1.02 pedestrian deaths per 100,000 people over the two-year period. While three cities actually had lower per-capita rates, they also had fewer people traveling by foot. According to 2000 Census figures, 4.0 percent of Boston area workers commute by foot, second only to New York. At the state level, Massachusetts ranked 35th in pedestrian deaths per capita, higher than any New England state except for Connecticut. The lowest rate was in Iowa, though that may be because relatively few people make trips without the benefit of wheels. The highest fatality rate was in New Mexico. According to the STPP,“walking is by far the most dangerous mode of travel.”In 2001, there were 20.1 deaths for every 100 million miles walked. The comparable figure for automobile travel was 1.3 deaths; for airline travelers, it was 7.3 deaths (an unusually high number because of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that year). Jaywalking was arguably a factor in 22 percent of the pedestrian deaths in 2002-03, where the victim was “not in the crosswalk.”But for 40 percent of the victims,“no crosswalk was available.”

A SHOT IN THE ARM FOR PUBLIC HEALTH People who don’t like needles should count themselves lucky they weren’t forced to get a flu shot this winter. Thanks to Massachusetts, the US Supreme Court ruled 100 years ago this February that local governments have BETTER JOBS NEXT YEAR? the right to impose penalties on citizens who don’t take Thanks in part to meager wage increases in 2003, Boston ranked an their medicine. At issue in the landmark case Jacobson v. unimpressive 144th among the nation’s 200 largest metropolitan areas Massachusetts was a Bay State law allowing cities and in “Best Performing Cities: Where America’s Jobs Are Created and towns to institute mandatory smallpox vaccination. Sustained,” a November report from the Milken Institute. The Santa Monica, Calif.-based think tank, which measured economic growth Jacobson was a Cambridge resident who refused to get over a five-year period (1998 through 2003), cited “consolidation in his shot; after being fined $5, he took his case all the way the financial services sector,” specifically Bank of America’s takeover to the Supreme Court, arguing that the law violated his of FleetBoston Financial, as a continuing cause for concern, and noted 14th Amendment right to liberty. The Supremes disagreed, that the region’s high-tech sectors were “hammered” during the most ruling that the mandatory shots were within the state’s recent economic downturn. Still, Milken concludes that Boston’s high- power to protect the public health. tech economy “appears to be stabilizing” and that the region’s ability to raise venture capital bodes well for emerging industries here. Two other Bay State regions were included on the list, with Barnstable BUCKLE DOWN and Cape Cod outranking the Hub, at 51st, and Springfield lagging About one-third of Bay State drivers still don’t well behind, at 183rd. The top three New England areas are Portland, bother with seat belts, according to the US Maine (14th); New London, Conn. (38th); and Providence, RI (46th). Department of Transportation. A report re- Fort Myers, Las Vegas, and Phoenix finished at the top nationally. leased late last year calculated that 63.3 percent Among 118 smaller metro areas, Pittsfield finished 81st, with Lewis- of Bay State motorists and front-seat passengers ton, Maine, the highest New England city at 17th. Missoula, Mont., use seat belts. Only Mississippi has a lower rate came in first nationwide. (63.2 percent), while New Hampshire did not submit data to the Transportation Department at all. Arizona has the highest rate of seat-belt use, with 95.3 percent.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 23 state of the states

Classroom cash PUBLIC SCHOOL SPENDING, 2003-04 SPENDING PER % CHANGE STUDENT-TEACHER It takes a lot of dough for Massachusetts to be noth- RANK / STATE STUDENT* FROM 2002-03 RATIO (RANK)** ing special in terms of staffing its public schools, 1. NEW YORK $12,059 4.1 12.5 (4) according to the country’s largest teachers’ union. 2. CONNECTICUT $11,773 3.5 13.4 (9) The National Education Association ranks the Bay 3. NEW JERSEY $11,390 2.6 12.8 (5) State fourth in spending per public school student 4. MASSACHUSETTS $10,772 2.8 15.0 (24) in the 2003-04 academic year but only 24th in keep- 5. VERMONT $10,630 6.7 10.9 (1) 6. DELAWARE $10,470 4.8 15.2 (28) ing down its student-to-educator ratio. More strik- 7. RHODE ISLAND $10,258 3.7 11.7 (2) ing is that Massachusetts had the biggest increase in 8. MAINE $10,145 6.1 12.9 (6) that ratio—from 13.9 students per educator in 2002- 9. ILLINOIS $9,839 4.5 15.4 (29) 03 to 15.0 students per educator the following aca- 10. ALASKA $9,808 2.5 17.2 (41) demic year. The ratio increased by more than a whole 11. WYOMING $9,756 5.5 13.0 (7) student in only one other state (California); nationally, 12. WISCONSIN $9,483 5.1 14.4 (18) 13. MARYLAND $9,186 5.5 15.7 (31) it stayed level at 15.7 students per educator. 14. WEST VIRGINIA $9,169 3.5 14.1 (16) One possible reason for the gap between spend- 15. OHIO $9,136 5.8 14.7 (23) ing and staffing is teachers’ salaries, by which mea- 16. NEW HAMPSHIRE $8,915 5.1 13.8 (12) sure Massachusetts ranked seventh in the nation last 17. MINNESOTA $8,821 3.8 16.2 (37) year. The average public school teacher’s salary was 18. GEORGIA $8,703 4.4 15.7 (31) $53,076 here, well above the national average of 19. MICHIGAN $8,671 4.3 18.5 (44) 20. PENNSYLVANIA $8,609 3.3 15.0 (24) $46,726—and an increase of 2.5 percent over the 21. INDIANA $8,414 4.2 16.9 (39) previous year, above the national figure of 2.0 per- 22. HAWAII $8,220 1.6 16.3 (38) cent. More evidence for this theory comes from 23. COLORADO $8,023 2.1 16.9 (39) California, which had the highest average salary 24. CALIFORNIA $7,692 6.2 21.2 (48) ($58,287) and one of the biggest increases (3.6 per- 25. MONTANA $7,688 4.3 14.4 (18) cent), along with the third-highest student-to- 26. KANSAS $7,622 2.0 14.4 (18) 27. OREGON $7,587 4.8 20.1 (47) educator ratio. Then there’s Vermont, which has 28. SOUTH CAROLINA $7,559 1.2 15.0 (24) the lowest student-teacher ratio in the nation and 29. KENTUCKY $7,474 1.6 16.1 (36) an average teacher’s salary ($42,007) that is slightly 30. WASHINGTON $7,446 5.5 19.3 (46) below the national norm. 31. NEW MEXICO $7,370 0.3 15.0 (24) What about New York and New Jersey, where 32. NEBRASKA $7,352 3.7 13.7 (10) teacher’s salaries are slightly higher than in the Bay 33. TEXAS $7,335 1.7 14.6 (22) 34. SOUTH DAKOTA $7,300 5.4 13.8 (12) State but student-to-educator ratios are well below 35. LOUISIANA $7,179 3.8 14.4 (18) the national average? Their strong showings may have 36. ALABAMA $7,163 3.9 13.8 (12) something to do with the fact that the NEA counts 37. IOWA $7,098 1.8 13.8 (12) all educators, not only classroom teachers, in calcu- 38. MISSOURI $6,947 -1.5 13.7 (10) lating its ratio. Last year’s annual “Quality Counts” 39. NORTH DAKOTA $6,835 5.1 13.2 (8) 40. NORTH CAROLINA $6,727 2.7 15.6 (30) report published by Education Week instead ranked 41. FLORIDA $6,516 2.2 17.5 (42) states according to “average class size for self-con- 42. VIRGINIA $6,441 2.0 12.2 (3) tained classes in elementary schools,”based on 2000 43. OKLAHOMA $6,429 4.9 16.0 (35) data from the US Department of Education. By that 44. IDAHO $6,372 -1.0 17.7 (43) measure, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and New York 45. TENNESSEE $6,279 1.1 15.7 (31) were all close to the national average of 21.2 students. 46. NEVADA $6,230 1.7 19.2 (45) 47. MISSISSIPPI $6,137 5.4 15.9 (34) (Nebraska had the smallest classes, and Arizona the 48. ARKANSAS $6,005 4.7 14.1 (16) largest.) 49. ARIZONA $5,347 2.4 21.2 (49) At least Massachusetts doesn’t have to cope with 50. UTAH $5,091 8.4 22.5 (50) more and more students. According to the NEA, US TOTAL $8,208 3.6 15.7 public-school enrollment dropped by 0.3 percent *Spending for public schools, not including capital outlays and debt interest. in the Bay State last year while rising by 0.7 percent **The number of students enrolled in the fall divided by classroom nationally. teachers and other instructional staff. Average class sizes are —ROBERT DAVID SULLIVAN presumably higher. Ranking includes ties. Source: National Education Association (www.nea.org)

24 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Making a difference in the community.

Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence • Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Foundation • Boston Adult Literacy Fund • Boston Parks and Recreation Department • Boston Public Health Commission • Casa Myrna Vazquez • City of Everett • Citizens Energy • Colonel Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Club • COMPASS • Courageous Sailing • Home for Little Wanderers • JFYNet • Labouré Center • MassINC • NCCJ • The Partnership • Project Hope • Project Place • Roca, Inc. • Shelter, Inc. • Thompson Island Outward Bound • Women’s Institute for Housing and Economic Development • Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence • Bessie Tartt Wilson Children’s Foundation • Boston Adult Literacy Fund • Boston Parks and Recreation Department • Boston Public Health Commission • Casa Myrna Vazquez • City of Everett • Citizens Energy • Colonel Daniel Marr Boys and Girls Club • COMPASS •

After all, it’s our home, too.

As an involved corporate citizen, Mellon New England has long supported organizations and activities that improve the quality of life. Because strong partnerships with communities where our employees live and work is simply the right thing to do.

From building playgrounds to mentoring young women at risk, Mellon is proud to support the people in our communities.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 25 head count

1 PROPOSITION 2 /2 OVERRIDES, 1980-2004 Approved at least one override since 1995 Approved at least one override before 1995 Never approved an override

te.ma.us) Two and a half decades of Prop. 2½ This year marks the silver anniversary of Proposition 1982; and Framingham voters approved $7.2 million in 2½, the property tax cap passed by voters in 1980. Prop. 2002. (Newton and Cambridge, appropriately, were 2½ essentially limits municipal governments to a 2.5 among the handful of communities to vote against percent increase in assessed property taxes each year, Prop. 2½ itself in 1980.) The biggest defeats have come but officials can bust this cap if—and it’s an increasingly in Needham ($17.3 million for “infrastructure mainte- big if—they can get a majority of voters to agree. nance” in 2002), Springfield ($10 million for public Successful overrides, which put additional funds in safety, health, and schools in 1989), and Plymouth ($7.0 municipal operating budgets (as distinct from debt ex- million in general expenditures in 1988). clusions, by which voters approve tax hikes that finance But in smaller communities, especially on Cape Cod capital projects, such as new schools and firehouses), and the islands, Prop. 2½ has resulted in dozens of votes have been prevalent in high-income suburbs to the west on tiny, narrowly defined spending requests. Chatham, of Boston, along with parts of the north and south Tisbury, and West Tisbury have each put more than 90 shores, Pioneer Valley, and the Cape and Islands. Outside override questions to voters since the tax cap was enacted. of urban corridors, practically every community west of In all three communities, about half the overrides have Worcester passed overrides during the first 15 years of passed, suggesting a deliberate evenhandedness on the the law, but voters in Berkshire and Franklin counties part of voters. Did Chatham voters approve $2,600 for seem to have taken a tougher line on property taxes re- Christmas lights in 1989 because they could reject cently. Large cities have always been cool toward prop- $2,600 for portable radios for the fire department on the erty tax hikes: Successful overrides in Cambridge, same ballot? Springfield, and Worcester came many years ago, and The most consistently override-resistant commu- officials in Boston, Lowell, and New Bedford have never nity has been Athol (zero approvals out of 20 requests), dared to put an override on the ballot. followed by Freetown and Raynham (both with 0-19 The three biggest successful overrides so far have records), while the most tax-hike tolerant voters seem been for “general operating expenditures.” Voters in to be in Orleans (six requests, all successful). Newton narrowly approved $11.5 million in spending —ROBERT DAVID SULLIVAN in 2002; Cambridge voters approved $10.2 million in Additional research by Reshma Trenchil Source: Massachusetts Municipal Association (www.mma.org); state Department of Revenue, Division Local Services (www.dls.sta Source: Massachusetts Municipal Association (www.mma.org);

26 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 27 Saving the world …one page at a time.

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28 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 town meeting monitor

Changing tides A seaside resort searches for a new—and balanced—identity by jesse hardman

SALISBURY—On a brisk October weekday, the only deals going as Methuen, Lawrence, and Lowell, who have traditionally spent part of down on Broadway are at Christy’s, a small pizza stand. At 1 p.m., their summers in Salisbury and now want to live by the beach year-round. the lunchtime crowd consists of two construction workers who “The south end of the beach is going from primarily a cottage-type have made the trip from Dracut, 30 miles away, just for a slice. atmosphere to condos and year- round rentals,” she says. “You’ll actu- Jerry and Bob have been coming to Salisbury their whole lives, ally see six or seven new construction developments going on right now.” but one of them gives a tough assessment of the town: “It was hopping 30 years ago. Now it’s dead.” he condominium boom represents a major change for a ot entirely. Certainly, it’s hard between the decline of Salisbury past T community long known as to find much sign of life on (a resort town that draws vacationers a seasonal destination. During the Broadway, since little else is of all types) and the potential of Salis- summer months, Salisbury’s popula- open around here during the bury future (an upscale seaside com- tion explodes from 8,000 people to late fall or the winter. On munity) has people here on edge. 30,000. the two-block stretch nearest Salisbury town planner Lisa Pear- The rising real estate market has the beach there is a ghostly son is keeping an eye on the rise in meant millions of dollars for devel- Nrow of vacant arcades and fried-food property values in a locality that is opers and some local residents, but it stands, and the beachfront itself is still subject to seasonal swings be- has also caused a lot of angst, says lined with old concrete buildings. tween summertime prosperity and Pearson. Some locals want to take One sports a faded painting of a palm off-season squalor. The average home advantage of rising values, but they tree, a vestige of past summers when price in Salisbury has skyrocketed also want to keep a “slice” of old-time it served as a bar and music club. by $100,000 in the past year, to well Salisbury, a family-oriented enter- But just across the Merrimack above a quarter-million dollars, she tainment center that once attracted River, in Newburyport, one can see a notes. performers like Frank Sinatra—and a place to live for a working-class Salisbury’s condo boom is changing population now at risk of being priced out of the town. what used to be a summer destination. An October 25 town meeting was supposed to provide some sense of sign of what is to come. There, tourists “Once the [MBTA commuter] direction, but it didn’t work out that are undaunted by the change of sea- train went in to Newburyport, prop- way. Residents debated a zoning pro- sons. Fleece-clad mothers with babies erty values rose,” says Pearson. “You posal meant to revitalize the beach- in strollers check out boutiques, coffee can’t afford anything in the area if you front and also set ground rules for shops, and bistros. are somebody that grew up here.”Be- development. The committee of resi- Not all Salisbury residents want to sides commuters to Boston, Pearson dents and town officials that drafted emulate their wealthier neighbor says there has been an influx of buy- the plan in May wanted, to quote from across the water. But the contrast ers from nearby communities, such an informational packet handed out

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 29 to voters, “to preserve a commercial income housing fund. The plan was weeks before town meeting. We were center with offerings that would attract supposed to harness the real estate very surprised by the intensity of the both local residents and visitors.” boom while simultaneously adding attack on the proposal.” “We were motivated to act quickly to what the state regards as Salisbury’s Beachfront resident Debbie Dastoli both to try to help preserve the cen- anemic affordable-housing stock. was one of those who spoke out ter and to create a new environment,” The zoning review committee held against the plan at the October town says Jerry Klima, a town selectman several meetings between May and meeting. She says the proposal and who headed the zoning review of October to get input from the review process was an “injustice,” the beachfront. “[But] business residents. Heading into complaining that the committee, which she said did not include any actual beachfront residents, failed to SALISBURY SALISBURY hold its meetings at convenient times Incorporated: 1638 and ultimately ignored the senti- (as Colchester, changing its ments of people who would be most name to Salisbury in 1640) affected by the plan. Population: 7,827 (2000 Census) Dastoli says that the plan would Town Meeting: Open not have directly affected her own property but would have put some of FACTS: her neighbors’ homes in the new com- Covering 17.8 square miles, Salisbury is located 42 miles north of Boston. It’s bordered on the north by Seabrook, NH, on the east by mercial area, where they might have the Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Merrimack River and the towns lost their ocean views, their access to of Newburyport and Newbury, and on the west by Amesbury. the beach, and, ultimately, a good About one-third of Salisbury’s area consists of wetlands and an estuary. The town chunk of their property values. is also home to Salisbury Beach State Reservation, the Commonwealth’s busiest state park. “The people in this new commer- In 2000, town voters rejected a proposal by a Las Vegas-based company to build cial overlay district live in little a $335 million casino and hotel on the beach. homes with little yards,” she says. “They don’t want to be a part of the commercial area. I wouldn’t want a demand is low, so anyone buying the fall town meeting, Klima says, 55-foot building next to me.” those properties would almost cer- things looked good for the plan. But What she wants, in part, is old tainly redevelop them as condos.” a few days before the vote, anony- Salisbury. “I don’t want to see another The committee’s solution was to rezone the area, dividing it into a ‘I don’t want another Newburyport. larger commercial area and an outlying area reserved for multi-family I [still] want to see a fried-dough place.’ properties. The commercial area would have been zoned for mixed mous fliers started appearing around Newburyport,” says Dastoli. “I [still] use, meaning that buildings could town, with the headline,  - want to see pizza places and arcades house both residential and commer-     . and a fried-dough place.” cial space. The proposal would have At the meeting, a boisterous group also raised the height limit for build- of opponents, many of them beach- ings in the beachfront district, from front residents, brought the fliers to hat Salisbury town man- 35 feet to 55 feet. That way, developers life in emotional fashion. The plan ager Neil Harrington could squeeze in the same amount of was soundly rejected, 280 to 147. Wwants is a different vision residential space as they could under Klima says he was caught off guard. for the beachfront. “We certainly existing law, while also providing “We’d had a total of 13 public need to promote the area as a three- room for ground-floor businesses. meetings and many other meetings season destination, as opposed to a But the plan also required developers with beach owners and potential one-season destination,”says Harring- who took advantage of the rezoning developers,”he recalls. “And we knew ton. That means more sit-down to either build affordable housing that some people were opposed, but restaurants instead of sidewalk food units (on the beachfront or elsewhere a couple of the primary owners had stands, plus some retail businesses. in town) or contribute thousands of testified in favor of the proposal in Harrington is still trying to get a dollars per new condo into a low- front of the planning board just a few grasp on what is happening in

30 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Salisbury himself. A native of Salem and former mayor of that city, Harrington first enjoyed Salisbury as most outsiders do: as a teenager, hit- WHO, ting the beach in the summertime. But the town’s atmosphere was not so fun when he took over a year and a half ago. WHAT, “We had had a bad relationship with the state Department of Rev- enue,”he says.“We were a year behind WHERE, on our audits. Just before I came, there were some significant cuts that needed to be made in the budget, including WHEN, cutting the police department in half, eliminating curbside trash pickup, and closing Town Hall two days a week.” Harrington says he worked hard WHY... to get the town back on solid financial look anywhere else when footing. He managed to settle labor contracts, complete a town audit, and IssueSource.org has the facts reorganize the town finance department. He is still trying to restore on issues in state government? the police department from 12 to 24 officers and bring back curbside garbage pickup, but he says the town IssueSource combines the just does not have the money. straight-ahead, no-nonsense reporting Now Harrington says that Salis- bury is facing “the ultimate transi- of State House News Service with the tion,”going from a vacation spot to a year-round community. Rezoning nonpartisan analysis of MassINC's plan or not, he says, the town is chang- award-winning CommonWealth magazine. ing fast: “We’re either going to shape it in the sense of creating the right kind of zoning environment, which we hope [allows] a reasonable amount It's deep. of growth, or else we’ll get steam- rollered.” It's fast. And not just on the beachfront. And it's from a Large condo developments are being built on both sides of Beach Road, source you can trust. which leads east from Town Hall toward the ocean, creating a stark contrast to the single-family homes that otherwise dot the relatively underdeveloped landscape. One reason for the condo explo- sion is Chapter 40-B, a state law that supersedes local zoning laws in order to increase affordable housing. Under 40-B, if less than 10 percent of the BOOKMARK IT TODAY! housing stock in a city or town is deemed “affordable,” developers may

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 31 build as many units as they want—as bring Salisbury’s past in line with place ride by ride to make way for long as 20 to 25 percent of them are its current reality was simply not new condos. He says amusement areas priced as affordable. Under state guide- explained well enough. like this have lost out to air-condi- lines, affordable works out to about “You can argue that there were a tioned movie theaters and shopping $190,000 for a single-family unit in significant amount of public meet- malls—not to mention easy air travel Salisbury, but with new condos going ings,” he says, “but if people felt that to behemoth attractions such as for $350,000 to $500,000, new con- they weren’t included, that’s the real- Disney World. Instead of fighting struction was hardly going to take the ity of the situation. That’s what they change, Mulcahy says, he has decided town past that threshold. Meanwhile, felt. We’re not sure whether people to embrace development. Salisbury’s traditional forms of low- were opposed because they don’t want “You do want to do something income housing, including mobile anything to change, or because they that’s good for the town, but people homes, seasonal motels, and winter weren’t sure what the impact would have to do what they got to do,” he rentals, don’t count, even though a be on them.” says. “We’re in one of the best home quarter of the local population makes building booms in this century, and less than $25,000 a year—putting the this is what people want. They want state-approved “affordable” housing ack at the beachfront, local to be near the beach.” well out of reach. business owner Tim Mulcahy Mulcahy argues that the changes “It’s a travesty when a town such B steps into his office just off can benefit all local residents, not just as Salisbury, which has one of the Broadway, a small room caught be- the ones with the means to buy and lowest per-capita incomes in the tween the old (a punch-card time build, and that’s why he supported state, has to live with a state law that clock) and the new (condominium the rezoning proposal. He wants to says we have something between 4 blueprints). On the walls are faded redevelop his property to include [percent] and 5 percent affordable,” photographs of the old beachfront, both commercial space and afford- says Harrington. “That’s ludicrous.” depicting a white roller coaster, a night- able housing. “The reality is, people are getting club with an ornate marquee that reads “I’ve lived here my whole life, my paid minimum wage and there’s a “Ocean Echo,” and a street packed family’s lived here their whole life,” high cost of housing,”says Deb Smith, with people and Model T Fords. Mulcahy says. “I don’t want to do a executive director of Pettengill House, Mulcahy’s roots here run deep. His project that, when all is said and done, a nonprofit agency that helps Salis- forebears were partners in Salisbury is going to be a burden on the town. bury residents who are struggling to Associates, the group of local resi- I’d like to do something really nice. I’d pay for housing and food. “A great dents that developed the beachfront like to do something that 10, 20 years number of our clients live in off- more than a century ago. His ances- from now people will say, ‘Wow, the season motels, non-insulated cabins, tors ran the famous Frolics Ballroom beach is great, it’s so beautiful, the and winter rentals that are as [expen- music venue, and his grandfather amenities are nice, the people are nice, sive] as a mortgage per week. But they can’t come up with the security Pirate’s Park is a ‘dinosaur,’ killed off deposit, first and last month’s rent [for an apartment].” by air-conditioned theaters and malls. Smith says that the high cost of housing is not only affecting the invented the “dodgem” car (the pre- it’s a great tax base. The town did underemployed, but also the families cursor to bumper cars), which really well.’” of local schoolteachers and police- debuted in Salisbury Beach in 1920 Members of the zoning review men, who, even with salaries around and remained a leading attraction committee hope that more residents, the town’s median income of $49,000, here until the ride was demolished in even if they don’t have a direct stake cannot afford to buy a home. She says 1975. Since he was 12, Mulcahy has in development, will come around to many longtime residents are being worked for his family’s beachfront Mulcahy’s view. They will spend the forced to move into nearby cities like businesses—including Pirate’s Park, next few months talking to voters Haverhill, or across the state border which became the last old-fashioned before proposing a new rezoning into New Hampshire. amusement area on the Essex County plan at town meeting in May. Harrington says that, based on coast after high-rise condos took what he heard from Dastoli and other over Revere Beach in the early 1990s. Jesse Hardman is a freelance journalist opponents at the town meeting, the Now Mulcahy calls Pirate’s Park a and a regular contributor to National rezoning plan he thinks will help “dinosaur,” and he’s dismantling the Public Radio. He lives in Somerville.

32 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 innovations

Speaking the same language Homeland security has agencies looking to improve communications by phil primack

savvy technology entrepreneur is always on the in Burlington. Even before the World Trade Center attacks, lookout for new opportunities, especially in a M/A-COM had developed an Internet-based system into market as hot as security. So Vanu Bose was ready which first responders could tap in order to communicate, when the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), which he says. is now part of the Department of Homeland “We thought everyone would sign up and the interop- Security, called for proposals to improve “interoperability problem would be fixed, especially with [the erability,”the clunky but apt label for technology Department of] Homeland Security devoting enough thatA allows police, fire, and other agencies to communi- money to do so,” says Hess. “Then the politics and reality cate with each other when responding to acts of terrorism set in. The technology exists to largely solve the interop- and other emergencies. “Interoperability means different things to different people,” says Bose, son of stereo-speaker pioneer Amar Bose and CEO of Cambridge-based Vanu, Inc. “But the fundamental problem is that different organizations show up at an incident with different radios, using different bands and different standards. If you have a terrorist attack, police, fire, ambulances, and federal agents are often all over themselves. They can’t talk to each other, or to the governor, who is probably using a commercial cell phone.” The cost of upgrading or replacing every communications system in a state or region is prohibitive, so NIJ was looking for more efficient solutions. Bose thought he had one in his Virtual Patch System. The size of a personal computer, Bose’s Virtual Patch uses software to link different communications hardware or frequencies, enabling a fire department on analog radios to speak almost instantly to police on digital systems or on different frequencies. With so much federal homeland security money flow- Vanu Bose: waiting to patch together police and fire radios. ing into the states, business must be pretty good, right? Not exactly, says Bose. erability problem, but who pays for it? Who organizes it? “We have stopped pursuing the Virtual Patch project Under what circumstances do people get to talk to each because we don’t know what to sell” or to whom, says Bose. other, and which people? Someone has to set the rules.” “We have demonstrated the technology, but where do we go now? What are the requirements and specifications? NEED-TO-KNOW MENTALITY We can invent the widget, but we need to know what you Other states can use strong county governments—which want the widget to do.” the Commonwealth lacks—to centralize disparate com- M/A-COM saw similar opportunity in those home- munities and jurisdictions. In Portland, Ore., for exam- land-security hills, recalls Rick Hess, former president of ple, the Connect & Protect program centralizes all 911 the Lowell-based company. “After September 11, everyone centers in the city and surrounding Multnomah County was talking about interoperability,”says Hess, who is now into a single center that uses Internet-based technology to CEO and president of Integrated Fuel Cell Technologies automatically—no humans involved—send emergency

MEGHAN MOORE WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 33 alerts to state and local public safety agencies, schools, or figuratively. hospitals, and private sector organizations over what the “There’s interoperability, which relates to how the program calls a “centrally managed, highly survivable, technology works, and then there’s ‘intertalkability,’” says highly secure wide-area network.” Boston Police Captain William Bradley, the department’s In September, Connect & Protect was named one of night supervisor for 911 operations. “Each jurisdiction five finalists for the first Mitretek Innovations Award in has jargon indigenous to its center. For example, for Boston Homeland Security, a prize given out jointly by the Ash police, ‘code 10’ means lunch. In Cambridge, it could Institute for Democratic Governance and Innovation at mean a breaking-and-entering in progress.” Reaching Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and by Mitretek agreement on such codes (and many departments no Systems, a nonprofit scientific research and systems engineering firm. Connect & Protect’s technology, which was developed by a public- private partnership called Regional Alliances for Infrastructure and Network Security (RAINS-Net), enables each participant in the network to set criteria for the alerts it wishes to receive over the Internet. For instance, the fire department in a particular town may want to know about serious fires only within three miles of its border. But according to RAINS-Net director Fred Granum, technology is not the only thing that makes Connect & Protect work. “The technology is not magical,” says Granum.“The magic is getting the culture and the socialization to work. Getting jurisdictions to change from a need-to-know to Public Safety Secretary Edward Flynn: riding herd on a “purposely fractured” government. a need-to-share format is a very difficult issue to overcome.” longer use codes at all) might seem simple, but it requires Federal, state, and local public safety officials here in intent and a clear direction, says Bradley. He says it took Massachusetts agree on the need to establish protocols for him a year just to get Boston police, fire, and EMS offi- communications between them, and they have been meet- cials to the table to agree. Those three key first responders ing for years to do so. While progress may appear slow, it now have a communications agreement. But Boston’s is real and steady, says state Secretary of Public Safety schools, hospitals, utilities, and other institutions are not Edward Flynn, who as police chief in Arlington County, plugged into this communications protocol. Va., led the recovery effort at the Pentagon after the September 11 attack. Key players are often “You can look at the time between 9/11 and now and say either, ‘I can’t believe how much hasn’t been done’ or fierce turf fighters. ‘I can’t believe how much has been done,’” says Flynn. “Government authority is purposely fractured in this Flynn has used both carrots and sticks to change the country. We have multiple levels of government, all of prevailing mindset. In early 2004, the state established which have veto powers over each other.” five homeland security regional planning councils, each As if jurisdictional challenges weren’t enough, key of which receives federal Homeland Security money that players within a single jurisdiction—especially police, passes through the state—which last year totaled $45 firefighters, and emergency services—are often fierce turf million, with 80 percent going directly to localities. Each fighters. After all, at any major incident, whoever controls regional council received $2 million for interoperability, communications tends to control the scene. First respon- but Flynn required each to submit a comprehensive plan, ders are sometimes not on the same wavelength—literally including a risk assessment, before that money could be

34 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 MEGHAN MOORE spent. Those plans were filed in November. “These coun- We have agreement on what we need and how we will cils have often brought together people who have never implement it. Now we can begin to engage operationally.” talked to each other before,” says Flynn. Still, not everyone who would be involved in response Carlo Boccia is director of the homeland security plan- to a terrorist act or other major incident, including area ning council that includes Boston and eight other cities hospitals, is linked together yet. Emergency medical services and towns in the metropolitan region. Since March, he communicate with hospitals through their ambulance has been Mayor Thomas Menino’s top advisor on emer- vendors, but so far the city’s medical institutions are not gency management and homeland security, arriving in formally tied to an interoperability plan. Again, that Boston after serving as agent-in-charge of the New York reflects the problem of multiple jurisdictions and disparate office of the US Drug Enforcement Agency. While Bradley authority, says Boccia. “In White Plains, [NY,] they have a has concentrated mainly on communications, Boccia says new commissioner of public safety who can do things interoperability involves far more. that bind police, fire, EMS, and all the environmental, “We have to deal with all of the cultures and all of the housing, school and other agencies,”says Boccia.“I cannot different disciplines,” says Boccia, who has the advantage do that here. We have to negotiate with each entity.” of reporting directly to the mayor, not to the police or fire departments or emergency services. “Interoperability isn’t TEARING DOWN SILOS just about communications. It’s about what we need to Not that he has to start entirely from scratch. Since the do so we can function in any event and any discipline, 1970s, for instance, more than 100 departments in eastern whether it’s communications, operational response, Massachusetts have had their radio systems linked through detection devices, or alarm and alert systems.” the Boston Area Police Emergency Radio Network Boccia says Boston’s various public safety players have (BAPERN), which was formed in the wake of antiwar signed a memorandum of understanding on such issues. riots in Cambridge. Homeland Security funds are being “It has taken longer than I would like to get to this point, used to upgrade that system, which hasn’t been over- but now we’re there,”says Boccia.“The difficult job is over. hauled in decades, says Brookline Police Chief Daniel

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 35 O’Leary. He says recent events, such as the Democratic National Convention and the unruly celebrations that broke out after New England Patriots and Boston Red Sox championships, offered local departments real tests of their communications systems and other interoperability plans. “I don’t know how many parts of the country can say they have 122 cities and towns that can talk to each other,” says O’Leary. But fire departments are not linked to BAPERN. Neither are hospitals and schools. So about a year ago, when Brook- line ran a test exercise, evacuating Brookline High School ostensibly due to an odor, the emergency management Applying cutting-edge political team worked together effectively. That team included rep- campaign techniques and talent resentatives from police, fire, ambulance, public works, and other public agencies—but no one from hospitals in to meet corportate and non-profit the nearby Longwood Medical Area. public affairs challenges. That gap is common across the country, says Joe Trella, a senior policy analyst at the National Governors Association. “We have this silo mentality,” he says. “Law www.deweysquare.com enforcement has gotten better at providing information across jurisdictions, but the disconnect is in notification Boston • London • Los Angeles • Sacramento to hospitals and schools.”Trella notes that the massacre of San Francisco • Tampa • Washington, DC students taken hostage in the Russian town of Beslan in September may have served as a wake-up call. Trella adds that while major cities such as Boston have at least moved toward interoperability, progress lags in rural areas. “At the state level, we’ve seen some fits and starts on progress in interoperability, but for the most part, it’s in major metropolitan regions,” he says. “States definitely understand the challenge to include non-urban areas in their planning, but major urban areas are just easier to deal with. And the issue is not the technology. A lot of people simply do not want to talk one another.” Technology may not be the issue, but it could become the issue if state and local officials are not careful, says Flynn. “We don’t want to back into a vendor-driven strategy to spend on new technologies when all these communities have already hemorrhaged money on old technologies,”he says.“We need interoperability that builds on old capacity,”such as BAPERN. Flynn also says that any spending on interoperability aimed at dealing with terrorism or other major events needs to be applicable to ongoing crime fighting and other obligations. In the end, says Flynn, it’s important not to turn interoperability into an end unto itself. He recalls what happened when police, fire fighters, and other first responders showed up at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. “Few of our radios were interoperable, but we managed to make things work,” says Flynn. “Some level of interoperability will always make things easier, but it is not a cure-all in itself. And the lack of it does not mean we won’t succeed in a given situation.”

36 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 This space generously donated by the Paul and Phyllis Fireman Charitable Foundation

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 37 DRIVEN TO DISTRACTION The cars that clog our roads also drain our wallets. Can insurance reform help?

38 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 When Cheryl Travis, an account supervisor at Weber Shandwick, a public relations and marketing firm in Cambridge, moved from Winchester to Charlestown two years ago, there was one cost that caught her by surprise: the $1,500 increase in her auto insurance premium. A call to her insurance company revealed that, because of the theft and accident rates in her new neighborhood, she would have to pay $2,700 a year—more than double the $1,200 she paid in Winchester—to insure her 1999 Acura with more than 85,000 miles on it and plenty of dents. “I could raise or lower Enterprise Institute and the my deductible, but the Brookings Center for Regu- difference is going to be latory Studies, all 10 of the around $50,” she says. “It’s market leaders in the state’s not going to lower my automobile insurance mar- overall costs by anything ket in 1982 were national important.” The only real companies that did busi- option she has for saving ness in all 50 states. By 1990, money is more drastic.“I’ve this number had fallen to thought about dumping five (with one additional the car, but I grew up with company doing business in a car,” she says. “I’ve never 48 states) and in 1998, the not had one. Now that I’m number declined to two almost 30, I can’t imagine (with one additional com- not having a car. I’m pany doing business in 47 married to it at this point.” states and two others writ- That means she’s mar- ing policies in two or three). ried to a high auto-insur- Cheryl Travis: “married” In virtually every departure, ance bill, and not just to a high insurance bill. the primary motivation for because she moved to leaving, which required the Charlestown. In fact, were it not for state-imposed subsidies companies in question to pay substantial penalties, was the designed to keep insurance affordable for city-dwellers, widely unpredictable distribution of high-risk drivers.With Travis would have to pay even more. rates set by the state, companies can’t charge higher-risk The cost of auto insurance in the Bay State is among the drivers more for their insurance, so companies that end up highest in the nation. The average premium in Massachu- with a disproportionate share of high-risk drivers lose their setts in 2001, the latest year for which data are available, was shirts, while those with a bigger share of low-risk drivers are $1,013.46—fifth highest in the nation,up from 11th in 1997, virtually guaranteed a profit. when the average premium here was $802.94, according to “In the mid-1990s, Massachusetts was one of the most the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The profitable states in the nation for the insurance industry as a state’s rate of increase between 1997 and 2001 is the highest whole,and yet we were losing companies,”says Steve D’Amato, in the nation. executive director of the Center for Insurance Research.“How One would think that high rates would make Massachu- can that be? The answer is we have this Kafkaesque system setts a good place for insurers, but it isn’t. Insurance com- of assigning bad risk. Everyone knew the system was unfair.” panies hate doing business in the state, and they are voting Last April, the Romney administration embarked on a with their feet. In 1990, there were 53 underwriters offering campaign to overhaul the automobile insurance market in auto insurance to drivers in Massachusetts. Today there are the state, creating a task force charged with investigating 19, with one more recently threatening to pull out, and ways to introduce free-market competition into the private many of those that are left are small insurers unable to passenger automobile insurance market. The task force was spread their risk over a large pool of customers. scheduled to report to the Legislature by the end of the year. According to a study published in 2002 by the American One obstacle to competition is a complex system of sub- by dexter van zile | photographs by mark morelli

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 39 Steve D’Amato: “We have sidies, which drive up the cost of insurance for this Kafkaesque system of experienced drivers with clean driving records to assigning bad risk.” keep insurance affordable for inexperienced drivers and those with bad driving histories. Another obstacle—though one the Romney administration insists will remain untouched—is the set of terri- torial offsets that force car owners in outlying areas with lower rates of collision and theft to pay more to make insurance more affordable for those who live in higher-risk neighborhoods, primarily in Boston and the state’s other cities. “The governor has stated that people wouldn’t be penalized for where they live,”says Beth Lindstrom, director of consumer affairs for the Romney administration.“Drivers should be paying in relation to the risk they pose to the system.” Indeed, the administration has trained its guns on the way we assign risk in our high-cost, high- dent state, a method that observers say is driving potential competitors out of the insurance market here. Last year, Insurance Commissioner Julianne Bowler instructed the 13-member governing committee STICKER SHOCK of the Commonwealth Auto Reinsurers (CAR), the state It’s not just insurance that makes cars a drain on our pock- body created to manage the “residual” market (customers etbooks. According to the US Department of Labor, own- no insurance company would take voluntarily), to design a ing a car eats up 19 percent of average household income plan that would more fairly distribute high-risk drivers nationally. At nearly $7,000 a year, the cost of keeping a pri- among insurance carriers. vate automobile on the road is second only to housing in the It was an approach that represented a consensus family budget and more than three times what a typical among the Romney administration, the Legislature, and Attorney General Thomas Reilly—a rarity in the fractious climate of Beacon Hill. “Fixing the residual market is an WHEELS BY THE HOUR important first step toward reforming the state’s auto in- City dwellers overwhelmed by the fixed costs of owning an surance market,”says assistant attorney general Alice Moore, automobile may find relief in Zipcar, a five-year-old service who serves on the task force appointed by the Romney that allows drivers to rent cars as they need them, on an administration. hourly basis. Besides freeing infrequent drivers from car pay- Still, in November, when Bowler issued new rules for ments, insurance premiums, repair bills, and parking fees, assigning high-risk drivers, she did so after the CAR review renting wheels by the hour promises, over the long run, to process had stirred up consumer concerns about the effect reduce congestion, says Scott Griffith, Zipcar’s CEO. Griffith of competition on urban drivers and on group discounts— estimates that for each of the 200 cars the company has and threats from at least one insurance company opposed deployed in Boston, parked in private and public parking to the shift, which said it might take the insurance com- spaces scattered around the area, seven to 10 privately missioner to court for taking action on her own. A group owned cars are kept or taken off the road. of 18 state senators also chimed in along the way, challeng- Zipcar was founded in 1999 by Robin Chase, a graduate ing Bowler’s authority to make these changes without of MIT’s Sloan School of Management, and Antje Danielson, legislative approval. a researcher who currently works at the Harvard Center At year’s end, however, the controversy seemed to have for the Environment. They got the idea while on vacation in died down a bit. Is this the calm before the storm? Or is it Berlin, where they saw cars parked around the city, avail- the sound of a new era in auto-insurance competition get- able for rent by the hour. They began operations in 2000, ting underway? Rep. Ronald Mariano, a Quincy Democrat outfitting the cars with wireless technology and creating who is House chairman of the Legislature’s Insurance an online reservation system that allows members—access Committee, says it had better be the latter. to Zipcars requires a monthly deposit of $50 or $75—to “If we don’t get it done now, we won’t get anything done reserve cars over the Internet. The cost of renting a car, for a long, long time,”says Mariano. ($8.50 an hour or $65 a day) is subtracted from this amount,

40 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 family spends out-of-pocket on health care. if the family includes a young, inexperienced driver), car And we’re keeping more of them on the road than ever. costs pile up, especially in a two-car family, Morrow says. Between 1992 and 2002, the number of licensed drivers in Then there are excise taxes, which for a car worth $20,000 Massachusetts increased just 12 percent, from 4.2 million to to $25,000 can approach $500 a year—enough to push some just under 4.7 million. But the number of vehicles registered car owners over the financial edge.“We’ve seen a number of in the Commonwealth leaped by 47.6 percent, from approx- consumers who didn’t figure those ramifications in before imately 3.7 million to 5.4 million. Cars now outnumber the purchase and who come to us when their registration is drivers in this state by some 700,000. on the verge of being cancelled,”says Morrow. All these cars cost us, in a variety of ways. Jennifer For low-income families, even a used car can be a finan- Morrow, e-commerce director of the Consumer Credit cial burden.“If you make $200 a week and your basic living Counseling Service of Southern New England, says that expenses are $190 a week, owning a car is not an option. roughly half of the 20,000 Massachusetts, Connecticut, and You’ll end up with a repossessed vehicle,”Morrow says.“Still, Rhode Island residents currently getting credit assistance it happens.” from her company got into financial trouble because of Then there is gasoline, the price of which has been climb- their car payments. ing in the past year. But, oddly enough, fuel costs are not as The trouble, she says, starts on the dealer’s lot—or the bad as they seem. Adjusting for inflation, the $1.92 a gallon finance office. In the late 1980s, the typical new car cost about price in late August was still substantially less than the $10,000 and was usually paid off in four or five years, says $1.35 a gallon charged in 1981, according to the American Morrow; these days, with most new cars costing $20,000 Petroleum Institute; gas prices would have to rise to $2.82 or more, six-year loans have become prevalent. Those to match the 1981 level. In any case, the cost of filling up is payments take their toll over time. a minor factor in auto economics, experts say. “People don’t sit down and do a budget and ask them- “Your fuel costs are a pittance compared to the overall selves,‘Can I afford this for 60 or 72 months?’”Morrow says. “A lot of buyers rely on who[ever] is financing the loan to determine whether they can afford the car, thinking,‘If it’s approved, it must mean it’s within my budget.’” For many families, it isn’t.With a typical car payment of $400 a month and a monthly insurance bill of $150 ($250

which in the case of the $75 deposit can be rolled over to the next month like minutes in a cell-phone plan. The company now has more than 15,000 members nationwide, with an average of 1,500 joining each month. Zipcar has cars-by-the-hour available in 21 cities and metropolitan areas in seven states. These include New York City, Washington, DC, and Arlington County, Va. Revenues were expected to reach Zipcar: at the curb, at the ready. $7 million in 2004, and hit $15 million this year. “Fifteen thousand people isn’t a lucky hit,” says Griffith, But then Isherwood, who gave up his own car when he married who sees a Zipcar payoff that goes beyond business. “We Kristine seven years ago, calculated that it cost them approx- think, based on surveys we have done, that somewhere imately $2,400 a year to keep Kristine’s Probe on the road. between 30 to 40 percent of our members have either avoided Using Zipcar for local trips and renting a car for weekend trips purchasing a car or disposed of a car because of Zipcar. That out of town could save them half of that cost, he figured. Still, it frees up a lot of parking spaces.” was a while before they made Zipcar their only car. Maintaining possession of a parking space was one reason “[The Probe] was my wife’s car and she was reluctant to get Todd Isherwood enrolled in Zipcar in 2002. Isherwood, an archi- rid of it,” says Isherwood. “Then we had some problems and we tect who lives in the North End with his wife Kristine, saw Zipcar knew we had a major repair coming. So we decided to get rid as a way to run errands without having to move their 1994 Ford of it before it happened.” Probe from its hard-won spot on the street. In that kind of thinking Griffith sees the start of an incre- “It’s so hard to park down here in the North End, especially mental revolution. in the evening hours,” says Isherwood. “So instead of using our “Is there a sea change coming?” he asks. “We hope so.” car, we used Zipcar.” —DEXTER VAN ZILE

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 41 cost of an automobile,”says Terry Regan, a senior associate well as his wallet. at the Planners Collaborative, a Boston-based consulting “During the summer I get them once a week for a dinner firm, and a research partner at the Rappaport Institute for visit, and the commute cuts into that,”says Kelliher.“And I’m Greater Boston, a public policy center at Harvard’s Kennedy supposed to pick them up every other week on Friday at 6 School of Government.“The cost to buy a car, finance it, and p.m., and I’m usually late because of the commute.” insure it is huge, and once you’ve done that, there’s really no During the Democratic National Convention last sum- reason not to drive.” mer, Kelliher moved back in with his father in Allston, commuting into South Boston on bike. ROAD WARRIORS And drive we do. In 2003, Massachusetts drivers logged a total of 53.8 billion miles at the wheel, up from 50 billion in 1997. The Boston Metropolitan Planning Organization estimates that in 2025, drivers will travel a total of 143 million miles a day in metropolitan Boston, up from 109 million in 1995. This increased mileage means more time behind the wheel, not all of it moving. The Texas Transportation Institute estimates that traffic congestion in the Boston area (which, for its purposes, reaches north to southern New Hampshire and south to Rhode Island) resulted in travel delays totalling 81 million person-hours in 2002—up from 57 million in 1992—and costing drivers $1.4 billion, or an average of $475 per commuter, in time and wasted gasoline (130 million gallons). In a report released last fall, MassINC and the University of Massachusetts’s Donahue Institute found that, for those who drive alone (three-quarters of all commuters), average commuting time by car jumped 18.1 percent from 1990 to 2000; of the 551,738 commuters who spend 90 minutes a day getting to and from work (18 percent of all commuters, up Michael Kelliher: “I don’t even want to know” the costs of driving 500 miles a week. THE AVERAGE COMMUTE IN MASSACHUSETTS JUMPED 18.1 PERCENT FROM 1990 TO 2000. from 11 percent in 1990), 79 percent do so alone in their “It was a 30-minute ride,” he says. “It was wonderful cars. Those lengthening commutes are in part due to road being in the morning sun.” congestion, as traffic counts on Massachusetts roadways Kelliher is bothered more by the wasted commuting time, increased by almost 14 percent from 1993 to 2001. But but he can’t ignore the financial costs, as much as he’d like it’s also because commuters are traveling farther to get to to. (“You add them up,”he says.“It’s ridiculous. I don’t even work, an estimated 10 percent increase from 1990 to 2000, want to know the numbers.”) Driving 500 miles a week costs according to the MassINC report, Mass.Commuting. him about $50 in gas, parking in the mud lot in South Boston These numbers have real consequences for people like $35 a week. Those costs, plus $1,000 for insurance and $450 Michael Kelliher, a divorced father of two who moved from for new tires (three in the past two years) and four or five Allston to Marshfield in 2001 to be near his children. oil changes a year at $30 apiece yields annual commuting Kelliher, who tests high-speed data circuits for Verizon in costs of close to $3,600. This doesn’t include the cost of Boston, spends between two-and-a-half and three-and-a- replacing his 2000 Toyota Camry, which he purchased in half hours a day on the road. That affects his family life as 2001 and has since paid off.

42 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 GOT YOU COVERED In 1976, then-Insurance Commissioner Jim Stone at- As one of the few aspects of car costs that the state has some tempted to further squeeze premiums by introducing control over, auto insurance has long been a source of con- rate competition. Stone convinced the Legislature to allow troversy in Massachusetts. And no part of auto insurance companies to set their own rates, which had been deter- has been more controversial than the role of market com- mined by the state since 1927. But the switch to free- petition. The AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory market competition quickly came under fire. Studies has described Massachusetts as having the “most “The rates for a number of urban communities and uniquely interventionist automobile insurance system” in young male drivers skyrocketed,” says Peter Robertson, a the country. In addition to requiring that insurance com- Newton attorney who serves as Massachusetts counsel for panies provide coverage to every driver that approaches the Property Casualty Insurance Association of America. them (the “take all comers”rule), the state maps out the ter- “There were massive protests at the State House, so [Stone] ritories and driver rating classes the companies use to assign began the process of undoing the competitive system.” premiums, which are also set by the state. Technically, free-market competition is still the law in the In 1972, the state went to a hybrid version of no-fault auto insurance market here, but not the reality. Each year insurance, which requires all drivers to obtain liability and since the uproar of the late 1970s, the insurance commis- uninsured motorist coverage and settles most damage sioner has made a pro-forma ruling that conditions are claims without recourse to the courts. Restricting lawsuits such that the state must intervene to ensure fairness in the to cases of serious bodily injury was supposed to hold down market, then presided over the process of setting premium insurance costs, but some critics have recently called for rates by regulatory decree. The “rate case,” as it is called, “consumer choice” between a stronger no-fault system, involves the state attorney general and representatives of the which they claim would provide lower premiums in exchange insurance industry in a predictable sequence of events: The for giving up all access to the courts, and tort liability, which industry asks for a substantial increase in rates, the attorney preserves the right to sue. (See Argument and Counterpoints, general calls for a rollback, and the insurance commissioner CW, Fall ’03.) makes a ruling somewhere in the middle. From these state-

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 43 Rep. Ronald Mariano: approved rates, companies can deviate only Subsidies now help “the downward, through discounts—which them- worst drivers in the pool.” selves are subject to approval by the Division of Insurance. The rate schedule issued by the state includes premiums for drivers in different categories of risk, or experience classes, which are assigned according to a driver’s age, number of years driving, and whether or not the driver has taken a safe-driving class. Overlayed on this matrix of categories is the Safe Driver Insurance Program (SDIP), which imposes higher premiums on drivers with bad driving histories and rewards drivers with good records under a system of “steps” numbered nine to 35. Step 9 drivers—those who have the best driving records—are rewarded with discounts, while Step 35 drivers—those with a history of accidents or violations—are charged higher premiums. This safe-driver score is based on a driver’s last six years of experience (new drivers are automatically assigned a Step 15 designation, which has a neutral impact on premiums). For each year a driver oper- greatly underpriced (by over $500).” ates without an accident, his or her step decreases by one The rationale for these subsidies is simple enough. until reaching Step 9. A further incentive is given to drivers Massachusetts requires all cars to be insured, but policy- with high SDIP scores. After operating three years without makers worry that sky-high premiums might force some an accident, they automatically skip to Step 14 under the of the highest-risk drivers to drive uninsured. Whether be- program’s “clean-in-three” regulations. cause of these subsidies or not, the uninsured-driver rate in Rates are also affected by geographic area—27 separate Massachusetts is among the five lowest rates in the country, DRIVERS IN SUBURBS PAY MORE TO OFFSET THE EXPENSE OF COVERING THOSE IN CITIES. territories in the state—because, in general, car owners an estimated 7 percent, according to the Insurance Research who live and, for the most part, drive in rural and suburban Council, an industry group. locales present less risk to insurers than urbanites. So far, no one’s gunning for these subsidies, but with While these provisions seek to align the cost of auto in- the insurance system under increased scrutiny, the under- surance with risk and behavior, they are offset by subsidies writing of allegedly bad drivers by good is getting attention. that reduce the price for high-risk drivers and those who live “If you look at the amount of accidents, almost 20 per- in urban areas, where collisions are more frequent. In gen- cent of them are caused by people with less than six years eral, older, more experienced drivers subsidize the cost of of experience, yet they receive the biggest subsidies,”Mariano younger, less experienced drivers, while drivers living in says. “Does that make sense intellectually? Here we are suburban and rural areas pay more for insurance to offset helping out the worst drivers in the pool. If I’m a 20-year- the expense of those who live in cities. Currently, 86 percent old kid and I’m banging up my car two or three times a year, of the state’s drivers pay more than their risk profile would I should have to pay more.” dictate and 14 percent pay less than they would without subsidies. A recent report commissioned by the Division BUMPER CARS of Insurance and prepared by the Tillinghast subsidiary of But the biggest factor in auto insurance costs, observers Towers Perrin, an actuarial consulting firm, estimates that say, is not the way we distribute costs but the way we drive. “non-urban experienced drivers are slightly overpriced (by According to the Insurance Research Council, the frequency less than $100) while certain inexperienced drivers are of property damage claims is higher in Massachusetts than

44 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 anywhere else in the US, with 6.88 claims per 100 insured speeds are much lower. If you’re going slower, you’re going cars in 2000. Washington, DC, comprised entirely of city to tend to be more aggressive. Getting through the light streets, has 6.16 accidents per 100 insured cars, while Con- means a lot more here than it does in Nevada.” necticut, which has demographics similar to Massachusetts Proponents of reform maintain that raising premiums and a comparable breakdown between city and suburban for risky drivers would have an impact on driving habits driving conditions, has 4.37 property damage claims per and, ultimately, reduce premiums overall. But not everyone 100 insured cars. Massachusetts also ranks highest in the is convinced. D’Amato, of the Center for Insurance Research, number of bodily injury claims, with 2.22 claims per 100. says the current system has significant penalties for traffic Washington, DC, has 2.07 claims, Connecticut 1.40. Certain violations and serious accidents—those “step” increases parts of Massachusetts have significantly higher levels of that take years to work off—that, so far, have not made a bodily injury claims. Boston, for example, has 6.4 injury dent in driving habits. claims per 100 insured cars, while Lawrence and Chelsea have an astounding 8.7 claims. A number CRACKING DOWN ON PHONY CLAIMS of these cities are thought to be hotbeds of auto-in- Fraud has become such an important part of the auto-insurance surance fraud (see “Cracking Down,” opposite). equation in Massachusetts that one factor in setting premiums is Deidre Cummings, consumer program director how much companies spend trying to fight it. Just how much for MassPIRG, says that it’s the high number of phony property-damage and personal-injury claims cost other auto accidents that causes high premiums. The way to owners in higher premiums is impossible to know, says Dan reduce the cost of insurance, she says, is to improve Johnston, executive director of the Insurance Fraud Bureau of driving habits. Massachusetts. But there's no doubt they have an impact on what “Until we get the accident rate down, insurance people pay for collision and liability coverage. rates are always going to be high,”says Cummings. “It varies by community, but the numbers do jump out at us in “It’s not just about the insurance companies and patterns of claims and the number of people injured in accidents,” how we regulate them. Talk to any driver that comes says Johnston. “In Lawrence, we had 141 people injured for every into the state and they know we drive differently. 100 accidents,” compared with 43 per 100 statewide. “If you take We drive on each others’ tails.” that 141 figure in Lawrence and cut it in half, you'll reduce premiums.” Driving can be improved, she says, not by rais- Lawrence is not the only hotbed of auto-insurance fraud; parts ing rates for inexperienced or unsafe drivers, but of Boston, Brockton, Lynn, Springfield, and Holyoke are others, he through a combination of stepped-up enforcement, says. But contrived auto accidents have gotten particular attention improvements in road design, and drunk-driving in the Merrimack Valley city. An Eagle-Tribune series published in initiatives. She even thinks it would make sense to 2004 reported that pain-and-suffering claims in Lawrence cost insur- raise the speed limit in some areas, if it were then ance companies $32 million in 2002. The paper also discovered strictly enforced. Better that, she says, than setting that residents of just 25 addresses in Lawrence collected more the speed limit unrealistically low, in the name of than $2 million in claims between 1996 and September 2003. safety, but largely ignoring violators. Lawrence is also one of several cities where Johnston’s fraud “People break the traffic laws a number of times bureau has partnered with police chiefs in creating fraud-fighting a day and know they’ll never get caught,” says task forces. A recent crackdown, which consisted of increased Cummings. scrutiny of claims and the introduction of an anonymous tip line, Christopher Kenneally, director of author and reduced reported accidents in the city by 40 percent. The Lawrence creator relations for the Copyright Clearance Center, task force has made 60 arrests in the past year and driven out of wonders about the lack of enforcement every time business eight chiropractors with dubious practices. he commutes from his home in West Roxbury to “Typically we find that when people are legitimately injured in his office in Danvers. People seem to do anything an accident, they go to more standard care, whereas in Lawrence, they can to pass the car in front of them, regardless people typically went to chiropractors,” says Johnston. Under the of the risks, he observes. state's no-fault insurance system, people who are injured in an auto- “It’s being aggressive for the sake of being mobile accident are not allowed to sue for pain and suffering unless aggressive—to be in front just to be in front,”says their medical bills exceed $2,000. For traditional outpatient care, Kenneally.“It’s not as if you’re going to have miles that amount is usually sufficient to cover the expenses of minor of clear driving once you pass the car in front of you.” accident-related injuries, says Johnston, but a course of treatment Such recklessness is a function of the number of by a chiropractor can be enough to pass the monetary threshold. cars on the road, says transportation analyst Regan. “Three visits a week for five weeks can get you there,” he says. “It affects our behavior because it creates more —DEXTER VAN ZILE frustration,”he says.“Because of congestion, travel

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 45 RISK AVOIDANCE But the big push behind auto-insurance reform is not about cross-subsidies or changing driving habits. It’s more basic than that. It’s about maintaining—if not creating—a viable market for insurance in Massachusetts. Not only does a shrinking pool of carriers undermine any real hope for competition in auto insurance pricing, it has a spillover effect in other forms of coverage, especially homeowners’ insurance. “Most of the national writers who come in here will want to write everything, top to bottom,” Mariano says. “When you walk in to get automotive insurance at Allstate, they want to sell you homeowners’. And when they get your homeowners’ insurance, they are going to write that policy nationally.” In other words,they will offset the risk of covering a home in Massachusetts, where coastal areas are prone to storm damage, against premiums from other states, where weather is less hazardous, Mariano explains. With national companies scared away from Massachusetts because of its auto insurance anomalies, homeowners have also become increasingly dependent on regional insurers. These underwriters operate with a diminished pool of premiums and capital to cover their risks, making them vulnerable to downgrades from rating companies like A.M. Best and Moody’s, which would harm their ability to win commercial clients. To avoid this fate, some local insurers are ceasing to write homeowners’ policies in high-risk areas. Last year, two insurance companies that are part of the Massachusetts-based Andover Companies—Cambridge Mutual and Merrimack Mutual—announced they would no longer provide insurance to 14,000 homes on Cape Cod, forcing their owners to obtain coverage from the state-managed FAIR plan, created in 1968 to serve homeowners unable to get insurance in the voluntary market.As more loss-prone properties get shifted to the FAIR plan, some observers fear that a single severe storm could render the state fund insolvent. That, says Mariano, means auto insurance reform is about more than how much drivers pay in premiums.“You’re talking about the health and the strength of the insurance industry,” Mariano says. “It affects everybody in one way, shape, or form.” But why is it that some auto insurers have gotten stuck with more than their share of high-risk drivers, while others get by carrying less than their fair share? Industry critic D’Amato says it’s a function of the insurance business’s propensity to avoid risk. “Insurance is a product that has some strange aspects to it,” D’Amato says. “It’s a product where you don’t have any interest in lowering the cost of the product,”increasing prof- its by capturing more market share.“That’s too inefficient. You want to limit your costs by picking your customers.” That’s been especially true in Massachusetts. With pre-

46 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 miums capped by state regulation, insurers with high num- this practice, and even questions whether it takes place at all. bers of bad drivers can’t possibly make a profit, while those But in June 2002,Attorney General Reilly wrote to Insurance with few accident-prone customers make out handsomely. Commissioner Bowler charging that payments to ERP agen- So, if there’s any way for an insurer to steer clear of high-risk cies have added considerable costs to the insurance system drivers, it would be well advised to do so. And under the in the state—costs that are passed on to consumers. system Insurance Commissioner Bowler is now taking apart, Not surprisingly, the most sought-after ERPs are located shrewd insurance companies found ways to limit their share in low-risk rural and suburban territories.Although created of the burden.

PLAYING THE MARKET The Commonwealth Auto Reinsurers, the state body responsible for making sure drivers whom companies wouldn’t insure voluntarily are still able to get coverage,operates an “assigned agent”system. A special class of insurance agents called Exclusive Representative Producers, or ERPs, serves as the primary source of coverage for high-risk drivers in the state. If all 800 ERPs had the same sorts of high-risk drivers, the system would spread the risk among insurance companies evenly. But they don’t. The loss ratio for some ERPs, especially those located in urban markets, exceeds 125 percent and even 150 percent, meaning that for every $1 collected in premiums the company pays out $1.25 or $1.50 in claims. Meanwhile, other ERPs, those in suburban and rural markets, enjoy loss ratios as low as 70 percent. CAR assigns ERPs to insurance companies in Deidre Cummings says proportion to the share of the voluntary market the way to cut costs is to they enjoy in the state. Beyond this initial alloca- improve driving habits. tion, however, the system is vulnerable to manip- COMPANIES THAT HAVE LOW-COST CLIENTS MOVE HEAVEN AND EARTH TO KEEP THEM. ulation. If, for instance, an ERP has to be reassigned, as by CAR in 1983 to provide consumers in underserved, high- when the company the agent sells insurance for exits the risk urban markets with a guaranteed source of coverage, market, he will be assigned to the insurer with the highest ERPs can be found all over the state. Indeed, the Tillinghast discrepancy between its share of voluntary and involuntary report states that 626 of the Commonwealth’s 799 ERPs are business. Once any company realizes it is next in line to get located in low-risk territories. a new, potentially undesirable ERP,it will engage in defen- “Many ERPs were created in communities where there sive maneuvers. For example, companies can encourage shouldn’t be ERPs,”says Frank Mancini, president and CEO their agents to purchase the business of ERPs with low loss of the Massachusetts Association of Insurance Agents, a ratios, protecting them from getting additional ERPs as- group pushing for change.“Companies realized they could signed by CAR. Another way to fend off the assignment of fulfill their ERP requirements by having an ERP in Wellesley a high-cost ERP is for a company to terminate its relation- just as well as having one in Mattapan.” ship with a non-ERP agent, reducing the company’s share The incentive to game the system this way is huge. of the voluntary market. According to the Tillinghast report, ERP-related loss ratios Conversely, companies that have ERPs with low-cost “range from 71 percent to a high of 195 percent.” Once a client bases move heaven and earth to keep them. One company is stuck with a bad book of business and realizes method of doing so amounts to kickbacks: direct, off-the- it can’t make a profit, it’s only a matter of time before it leaves book payments to preferred agents. The industry condemns the state, as Fireman’s Fund threatened to do last year, even

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 47 though withdrawal would have cost the company $5.5 available to them. “It reintroduces healthy market dynam- million in penalties. ics in order to attract new insurers to our state and ultimately provide agents and their customers a wider array of choices,” CHANGING THE RULES Bowler said in a press release announcing the new system. On November 23, Commissioner Bowler approved a new For the most part, the insurance industry is enthusiastic method for assigning bad risks. Under the plan, which is about the new assigned-risk approach, which state officials similar to mechanisms used in 42 other states, drivers who hope will also draw national insurers like Allstate and Geico cannot obtain automobile insurance on a voluntary basis into the Massachusetts market. Some 16 Bay State insurers would be allocated individually—not in groups, as they are expressed their support all along. But there have been ex- through ERPs—and at random to insurance companies in ceptions, notably three of the largest auto-insurance com- proportion to their share of the market. Those companies panies in the state: Commerce Insurance of Webster,Arbella would each be responsible for paying their customers’claims, Mutual of Quincy, and Plymouth Rock Assurance of Boston. giving the insurers more incentive to fight fraud. Commerce, in particular, raised a variety of objections This would not happen all at once. The switchover would to earlier versions, though some of them were satisfied in the be phased in over three years, becoming final in 2008, in final plan. Long thought to be a principal beneficiary of the hopes of avoiding the chaos caused by introduction of state’s elaborate regulatory system,Commerce tried to dispel market competition in 1977. During the transition, ERPs that impression in October by touting an in-house analysis would only be assigned to insurance companies with more that showed that Commerce would benefit financially from than 2 percent of the voluntary market, which currently the changes then under consideration.“While the impact of number 12. It is hoped that allowing companies with less these rules would be favorable for Commerce, they would than 2 percent market share to skirt the high-risk customers be terrible for the industry and terrible for consumers,” will encourage companies to come back into the state. Commerce senior vice president and general counsel James Bowler says the changes will not have any impact on pre- Ermilio told The Boston Globe. miums paid by consumers or affect the coverage options The company also threatened to file suit if Bowler im-

48 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 posed a new method of risk assignment without approval D’Amato is still concerned that, during the switchover, from the Legislature, where Commerce is thought to have some drivers could be dumped into the involuntary mar- considerable influence. Indeed, 18 state senators, all ket, despite good driving histories, because of where they Democrats, signed a letter to Bowler asking her to seek a for- live. In addition, he says, getting rid of ERPs won’t rid the mal legal opinion as to whether legislative action is required auto insurance industry of gaming but rather make for new for the change. games.“In other states,”says D’Amato, insurers “game [the When Bowler issued her decree on November 23, reac- system] by not writing [policies] in certain areas.” tion was oddly muted. Nearly a month later, Commerce had Meanwhile, Sen. Joan Menard, the Somerset Democrat yet to make a statement about the plan it had long opposed. who drafted the lawmakers’letter, filed a bill that would pro- And the Attorney General’s office, which has been support- hibit implementation of Bowler’s plan until it is approved ive of the push toward random assignment, had yet to give by the Legislature.

CHOOSING TO COMPETE If the random-assignment plan goes through, in some form, it will be just the beginning of a move toward rate competition in the auto-insurance market. But already, the prospects for reform seem to be improving the insurance climate here. Frank Mancini, president of the insurance agent association, says some ERP agencies that used to be treated as pariahs are getting phone calls from insurance companies that want to do business with them. Even better, he says, some companies not doing business in Massachusetts are now considering coming into the state. And then there’s Fireman’s Fund, which pulled back from its plan to leave the state next year after meeting with state regulators just weeks before the November deadline for withdrawal. “We came away impressed with the depth and sincerity of the state’s commitment to the reform process,” Robert Courte- manche, president of the company’s personal insur- Beth Lindstrom says good driving is a ance division, told The Boston Globe. “personal responsibility.” And a process it will be, with relief for premium payers coming, at best, bit by bit. “It won’t be a dramatic drop in rates, because that’s not how the system Bowler’s plan its endorsement. Possibly at issue are the operates,” says Mariano. “It doesn’t react immediately to “clean in three” provisions Reilly favors. Bowler included a changes, but I do think over time, as we get national writ- provision preventing drivers from being trapped in the ers in here competing for business, rates will either flatten high-risk pool once three years have elapsed from their most or go down.” recent accident or moving violation, but dropped the au- What would really drive down rates, all observers agree, tomatic reduction in safe-driver insurance program “steps” is fewer accidents. Whether insurance reform will do any- for remaining accident- and violation-free for three years. thing about that remains to be seen. But the Romney ad- But in the wake of Bowler’s ruling, a new issue arose: ministration thinks it’s a place to start, and a growing group discounts, including the one Commerce gives to mem- number of other state and industry officials agree.After all, bers of the American Automobile Association. Under the state consumer affairs director Beth Lindstrom observes, new rules, insurance companies would have to carry the Massachusetts may be a bad place to drive, but not everyone costs of high-risk drivers who happen to qualify for such drives badly. member discounts; previously, insurers could cede these “Three quarters of our drivers have good driving records,” drivers to the high-risk pool, where their losses were shared she says.“They navigate the same cow paths as everyone else. with other companies. In a December 17 hearing, Arbella If the vast majority of drivers have good driving records chairman John Donohue testified that having to bear these using the same roads, then it’s personal responsibility.” risks could cause companies to reduce their group discounts or discontinue them altogether, according to the Globe. Dexter Van Zile is a freelance writer in Boston.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 49 the courage of their convictions Can new science and new procedures make justice a certainty?

by matt kelly | photographs by flint born

Eight years ago, Donnell Johnson’s fate with prosecutors for three years, claiming that the witnesses seemed to be sealed. He was convicted for the Halloween implicating Johnson were wrong.The Suffolk County District 1994 murder of a 9-year-old boy, then the youngest shoot- Attorney’s office stood its ground until an unrelated inves- ing victim in the history of Boston. Only 16 tigation turned up another suspect—some- years old at the time, Johnson had been one Johnson had identified as the killer from arrested the day after the shooting, and he the beginning. On November 22, 1999, a remained in jail until his trial in March 1996. Superior Court judge ruled that Johnson had Three witnesses placed him at the scene been convicted erroneously. He was set free. with a gun. Johnson was sentenced to 20 years “The jury has spoken, the book has closed in prison, where he was to remain until he —that was the mentality of the district attor- reached his mid-30s. ney’s office,”says Johnson’s attorney, Stephen In many respects, Johnson’s case was un- Hrones. remarkable. An estimated 300,000 criminal Now the book is starting to be reopened. cases wind their way through Massachusetts Not that erroneous convictions are necessar- every year. Most criminals are caught. Most ily rampant. Massachusetts has exonerated criminals are convicted or plead guilty. In only 36 people convicted of violent crimes in courtrooms from Boston to Pittsfield, their sentences are the past 200 years, though 15 of them have been cleared since meted out every day. In Donnell Johnson’s case, however, the 1989. But people are not statistics, and even prosecutors wheels of justice ground past one important fact: He didn’t understand that every conviction overturned not on a commit the crime. technicality but on the truth shakes the public’s faith in the While Johnson languished in prison, his lawyer argued system of justice.

50 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Donnell Johnson: convicted by witnesses, freed by happenstance.

“We have to do everything in our power to stop it from • Kenneth Waters, convicted in 1983 of murdering an occurring,”says William Keating, district attorney of Norfolk Ayer woman and freed 18 years later in 2001. His sister, County. Keating had his own near miss in 1999, soon after formerly a waitress, worked her way through law school he took office. His predecessor had arrested a Walpole man, to press his case. She, too, found discarded evidence in a Edmund Burke, for the murder of 75-year-old Irene Kennedy courthouse that had DNA evidence exonerating Waters, in a Foxborough park on December 1,1998; 41 days after his despite numerous witnesses against him. arrest, prosecutors freed Burke when a DNA sample taken The common theme in the reversals of the last 15 years from Kennedy’s body implicated another man. has been DNA evidence irrefutably proving innocence—the Burke is now suing the state, but his was a minor incon- testimony of eyewitnesses and even outright confessions to venience compared with other erroneous convictions in the contrary. Records set straight by this scientific tool have Massachusetts: called into question the reliability of law enforcement’s • Stephan Cowans, freed last year for the shooting of a standard operating procedures,such as eyewitness testimony, Boston police officer.A convicted petty thief and shoplifter, mug shots, and suspect lineups.“Beyond a reasonable doubt” Cowans was sentenced in 1998 to 35 years in prison. DNA is, all of a sudden, subject to doubt. evidence from a mug and a hat discovered at the scene later “The DNA is a surprise to people,”says Dan Givelber, a implicated someone else. Northeastern University law professor and co-founder of the • Dennis Maher, released in 2003 after 19 years in prison New England Innocence Project. “There is an emerging for two rapes in Lowell and Ayer. A volunteer law student awareness that many of our traditional practices aren’t as discovered in the basement of Middlesex County Court- accurate as we’d like to believe.” house misplaced evidence, which had DNA residue that Police, prosecutors, and lawmakers are now scrambling cleared Maher. to transform these signs of fallibility into a new science of

REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION OF GLOBE NEWSPAPER COMPANY, INC. WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 51 certainty, translating past foul-ups into new policies and procedures that (it is hoped) will stamp out erroneous convictions forever. Interrogations and confessions are being tape-recorded, witnesses are being shielded from prejudicial comments during suspect identifications, and, in general, the human factor is becoming subordinate to the physical in an attempt to take the guesswork out of justice. In the process, persons convicted of crimes they did not commit are regaining their freedom, and suspects are becoming less likely to be fast-tracked into prison. At the same time, at least if the governor of the Commonwealth is to be believed, the possibility of error is diminishing enough that it is no longer sufficient reason to ab- stain from the ultimate criminal sanction: the death penalty.

TO ERR IS HUMAN Using DNA samples as evidence in crim- Attorney Stephen Hrones didn’t accept that “the book was closed” after a verdict. inal trials first came into vogue in the early 1990s, with Massachusetts courts beginning to accept them in 1994. Since then, prosecutors have embraced the genetic DNA analysis test as a virtually foolproof indicator of guilt or innocence. Mistakes in analysis do sometimes occur, but for the most part DNA and other physical,“scientific” evidence provide is uncovering the most reliable grounds for conviction. In contrast, legal scholars say, the most common causes of erroneous convictions are found in “human evidence”: more and eyewitness testimony, suspect confessions, and tips from informants. People remember facts incorrectly, identify the more mistakes. wrong suspects, even lie in court. Sometimes suspects will confess to crimes they did not do. The simple explanation for lapses in human reliability is These sources of error are now on the criminal-justice that the mind does, in fact, play tricks. Mahzarin Banaji, a agenda, put there by DNA exonerations. Last year, the Harvard University psychologist who studies memory, calls University of Michigan did an exhaustive study of false such false recollections “mind bugs.” Typically, she says, a convictions overturned since 1989, when DNA evidence first person fills in the gaps surrounding a particular memory freed someone from behind bars, and documented 328 with details or assumptions from other memories. such cases nationwide. Nearly 320 were for rape or murder, “The recall or misrecall of each little event can affect the of which 73 had placed someone on death row.And the pace next,”says Banaji.“What’s important is that these downstream of exonerations is accelerating, from an average of 12 per year effects can happen entirely without conscious awareness.” in the early 1990s to 43 per year since 2000.As technology— In the University of Michigan study, nearly 90 percent of particularly DNA analysis—has advanced, more mistakes false rape convictions stemmed from witnesses, including are being discovered. What’s unknown is how many more the victims themselves, misidentifying the suspects. But miscarriages of justice remain uncorrected, since most Gross found that the leading causes of false murder con- crimes leave no DNA samples to study. victions were less innocent: perjury and forced confession. “It’s clear from this data that false convictions are much Massachusetts district attorneys moved to take up the more common than exonerations, and that the vast major- issue of false convictions last year, when “you couldn’t pos- ity are never caught,”wrote law professor Samuel Gross, the sibly miss” the exonerations reported in the media, says study’s author. Massachusetts District Attorneys Association director Geline

52 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Williams. The 11 prosecutors spent the latter presentation and a stronger taping policy last summer. half of 2004 consulting with forensic experts, Other counties have also held training sessions with their psychologists, defense lawyers, and others to de- local police departments. velop new procedures for identifying witnesses “There is no question in my mind that these steps will and interrogating suspects. reduce the number of false convictions,”says Suffolk County “That’s where we’re looking for sweeping, District Attorney Dan Conley. Conley came into office in systemic changes,” says Williams. She expects 2002, and he commissioned a panel of criminology experts recommendations by spring. to devise those improved suspect-identification methods Among the changes under consideration: unveiled last year. He proudly notes that even famed defense showing mug shots of suspected criminals one lawyer Barry Scheck, co-founder of the New York-based at a time to witnesses, rather than in an array; us- Innocence Project, endorses the new standards. ing such “sequential presentation”for in-person Middlesex County District Attorney Martha Coakley per- identifications, replacing the traditional group sonally led four training sessions with her county’s police de- lineups; using a “double-blind” system, where partments last year. Meeting with 40 to 50 officers at a time, the officer presenting suspects to a witness does she gave them a nine-point checklist to be read to witnesses not know which person the investigating officers before asking them to identify a suspect,much like the Miranda consider the likely criminal; and videotaping warnings read to people placed under arrest. (Item 2:“This may or may not be the person who committed the crime, so you should not feel compelled to make an identification.”) “We have to improve the way we elicit witness identification,” Coakley says. “To me, the most important part is giving them an easy kit to do it.” Last July, Keating met with officers from Norfolk County police departments to review much the same material. One speaker was a rape victim who identified her “attacker”in court but was proven wrong—after the man spent seven years in prison. Banaji also spoke about Norfolk DA William Keating: False identifications are “a human issue, not a police issue.” flaws in human memory. “We started by saying this is a human issue, not a police issue,” interrogations and confessions. says Keating.“All people have cognitive prejudices that filter The Supreme Judicial Court expressed its own dissatis- in. The presentation [Banaji] gave opened a lot of eyes.” faction with current interrogation techniques last August. What’s at stake for prosecutors is credibility—with the In a 4-3 decision, the SJC ruled that when interrogations public and with juries. False convictions are rare, says are not recorded, a judge must tell the jury that unrecorded Williams, but it doesn’t take many to undermine confidence confessions give “a woefully incomplete and inherently in the criminal justice system. unreliable version of what everyone recognizes as critical “It’s minuscule in hard numbers,” she says, “but it’s evidence in the case.” Police bristle at the implication that devastating in impact.” they cannot be trusted, but defense lawyers and prosecutors alike agree that such judicial discounting of unrecorded BACK FROM THE DEAD confessions will give police strong incentive to commit their The quest for scientific certainty in criminal prosecution has interrogation of defendants to tape. not been confined to freeing those falsely imprisoned. In Some DAs have already tightened up human-evidence Massachusetts, the prospect of an error-free criminal- procedures on their own. Notably, Suffolk County prosecu- justice system has given new life—at least in the governor’s tors and the Boston Police Department adopted sequential office—to hopes of restoring the death penalty.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 53 To date, exoneration by DNA of death-row inmates around the country has mostly bolstered the cause of capital-punishment opponents, demonstrating as it does the risk of a fallible criminal-justice system sending an innocent person to death. In 2000, Illinois Gov. George Ryan declared a moratorium on executions in the wake of overturned capital convictions. But for Gov. Mitt Romney, the evolution of forensic science has inspired hopes of a foolproof death penalty, and last May a panel of experts appointed by the Managing Complexity governor issued recommendations on how to craft one. Fred Bieber, a Harvard Medical School professor and Government Relations, Public Relations, co-chairman of Romney’s commission, concedes “the well- Project Development, International, known foibles of human evidence,” which is why he says Health Care, Environment physical evidence should be paramount in the legal matter of life and death. “If you’re going to ask a jury to consider the ultimate sanction, we feel they should be armed with a lot more ammunition than a confession or jailhouse testimony,”says Bieber. To that end, in addition to limiting the death penalty to a narrow set of crimes (including murders of law enforcement Boston/NewYork /Washington/Reston/New Haven officers and “torture”murders), the governor’s commission insisted on two prerequisites for imposing the death penalty: www.mintz.com that the jury be instructed about the perils of human evidence, and that a finding of guilt be based on “conclusive scientific evidence with a high level of certainty.”The commission defined such evidence as DNA samples, photographs, videotapes, fingerprints, or similar physical proof. Bieber’s commission also proposed multiple layers of review, to prevent irreversible slip-ups.All physical evidence Interested in in death penalty cases would be subject to an independent scientific review,managed by an advisory committee of foren- advertising in sic experts. That committee would also help set standards for forensic expertise at crime labs working for the state. CommonWealth? “In the vision we had, there would be so much oversight into the forensics of cases...[with] independent people looking at the case soup-to-nuts, they could point out any errors Take ADVANTAGE of this in commission or omission,”Bieber says. Under such a system, Gov. Romney declared at the time unique OPPORTUNITY of the report’s release, he would “be happy to stake my own life on a process of this nature.” to reach over State Rep. James Vallee, a Franklin Democrat and House chairman of the Legislature’s criminal justice committee, 11,000 opinion leaders agrees that the quality of evidence is one factor in judging the merits of any death penalty plan. Though he is a sup- each quarter! porter of capital punishment,“a lot of legislators have always had a concern about wrongful conviction,” says Vallee. Improved forensics and DNA evidence, he says, could make dispensing the death penalty more defensible. FOR MORE INFORMATION So far, this new-and-improved approach to capital pun- CALL 617.742.6800 x101 ishment has yet to demonstrate any political legs. In the OR GO TO www.massinc.org. Legislature, interest in resurrecting the death penalty, which was abolished in 1984, has waned since 1997—when, in the wake of the murder of 10-year-old Jeffrey Curley,it came with-

54 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Harvard professor Fred Bieber: “Scientific evidence” is vitally important in death penalty cases.

really strange system,” in which death-penalty cases are so narrowly defined and so tighly reviewed that none could be prosecuted.And even some prosecutors find little reassurance in the supposedly airtight proposal. “Unless they take the human part out of being a human being, I don’t think there is a foolproof system,”says Keating. Coakley has a different concern. She previously supported the death penalty, but changed her mind once the wrongful conviction of Joseph Salvati was exposed. Salvati and three other men were sentenced to life in prison in 1965 for a New England organized-crime murder, and the FBI covered up evidence of their innocence until 2000. Salvati and fellow inmate Peter Limone were finally exonerated in 2001, but their other two cohorts had already died behind bars. For Coakley, better science and better procedure can prevent honest errors. But deliberate sabotage is another matter. “Mistakes can right themselves,”Coakley says,“but malfeasance might not be uncovered.”

CHAIN OF EVIDENCE In a death-penalty (or any other) case, defense lawyers insist that for a conviction to be truly foolproof, all physical samples must be preserved and analyzed in a manner that’s open to scrutiny every step of the way. In much the same way corporations audit their finances to monitor cash flow, they say, outsiders must be able to audit a trail of evidence so they can identify possible malfeasance anywhere along the line. Suspicions were “We have lots of examples, some of them unfortunately right here in Massachusetts, where analysts have given raised about results that turned out to be blatantly false,”says Harry Miles, a defense lawyer in Northampton. One example is the Cowans conviction.As a result of his planted prints. exoneration, suspicions were raised about whether techni- cians in the Boston Police Department’s crime lab planted in one procedural vote of becoming law. Last session, in a Cowans’s fingerprints on evidence. Police Commissioner hearing on perennially refiled bills not a single person tes- Kathleen O’Toole asked the state attorney general’s office to tified in favor of restoring capital punishment.(Taking note investigate. No charges were filed, but an external review of Massachusetts’s “foolproof death penalty”trial balloon in uncovered numerous problems, and O’Toole closed the its annual Year in Ideas issue, The New York Times Magazine fingerprint lab in October. quoted University of California–Berkeley criminal-law pro- Miles, Bieber, and others say evidence must be tracked fessor Franklin Zimring as declaring Romney’s proposal from its collection at the crime scene, through its labeling “the first effort to write a solely symbolic criminal statute.”) and storage, to its analysis at forensics labs. But district at- Givelber,of the New England Innocence Project, believes torneys bristle at the thought of defense attorneys looking that Romney’s convoluted procedure would result in “a over their shoulders as they scrutinize evidence.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 55 “To turn the world upside down because we have a new fashion,”Coakley says. scientific tool, and say police should not investigate crime And it can be a huge expense: $10,000 to $20,000 for scenes unless defense attorneys are right there with them... private testing of a DNA sample, plus more fees for scien- has never been American jurisprudence, and never should tists to testify at a trial. Massachusetts’s crime lab costs half be,”says Bristol County District Attorney Paul Walsh, who as much and provides expert testimony for free. That’s is president of the National District Attorneys Association. if prosecutors can afford to wait for the results, which can Prosecutors note that they are legally and ethically take several months. required to disclose all evidence to the defense, even when The DAs are willing to fork over the cash from their that means acknowledging incompetence or fraud in the own budgets because of the ironclad verdicts DNA samples handling of it. In addition, they say, law enforcement officials Middlesex DA Martha Coakley have little motive to manipulate says even science isn’t foolproof. evidence when they’re still investigating the crime. “Sometimes that’s lost on the defense bar,” says Keating. “Pro- secutors shouldn’t make that quan- tum leap, and I don’t believe they do make that leap, to a suspect.” Still, it wouldn’t hurt to put control of evidence and forensic analysis in the hands of a third party, with its findings available to all parties, Bieber suggests. That could mean shifting oversight of the state crime lab from the State Police to the Department of Public Health, for example. “That would go a long way to putting aside any lingering questions about bias in the system,”he says. can provide, and because if a suspect is still at large, they While defense lawyers worry about bias, prosecutors can’t afford to skimp.“If there is testing to be done, you do worry more about productivity, with underfunding of the it, because it’s the right thing to do,”Keating says. crime lab resulting in lengthy delays in analysis. (See “Crime labs failing to make the case,” CW, Summer ’02.) BALANCING THE SCALES “For my money, Massachusetts has the worst crime lab Ultimately, the surge in exonerations may be just that—a in the country,”Walsh says.“It’s woefully underfunded. It is surge, the result of a new technology (DNA testing) con- always a work in progress. I’ve been here for 15 years, and verging with old suspicions of injustice. Williams, of the I’ve heard it all for 15 years.” Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, believes the So have lawmakers, who are now responding. Funding system has now “turned a corner,”where police and attor- for the crime lab in Sudbury, run by the State Police, went neys grasp the scope of the evidentiary problem and law- from $4.55 million last year to $6.23 million in fiscal 2005. makers accept the need for more money to improve the Funding for the medical examiner’s office—long criticized certainty of conviction. for squandering grants, taking too long with autopsies, and Suffolk County DA Conley compares the current forgetting names on death certificates—had been funded changes in law enforcement to the act of ripping off a ban- at the $3 million level for years. Its budget finally went from dage: a painful moment that’s really a sign of recovery. “As $3.66 million last year to $6.13 million in 2005. these new standards take hold, I think citizens can have Even with this infusion of funding for state forensics new confidence in what they see and hear,”he says. offices, prosecutors still frequently send evidence out of Still, loose ends remain, some of them significant. For state for speedier analysis. Keating has sent samples to the example, in 2001 and 2002 Norfolk County prosecutors state crime lab in Maine; Coakley, Walsh, and others use searched for erroneous convictions from among more than Cellmark Diagnostics in Maryland. “It’s a huge issue... 200 cases, all at least six years old, where inmates maintained in terms of implicating or exonerating people in a timely their innocence and physical evidence was available for re-

56 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 examination.“We didn’t find any” to reverse, says Keating, facts of the crime and Johnson’s claims of innocence. But “but we thought it was a great process to go through.” that twist didn’t come until Johnson had served five years Then there is the question of what to do for those who behind bars. were sent to prison wrongfully. Some states have a restitu- For his part, Hrones, who has gone on to represent three tion formula that pays damages based on the average state other men exonerated in Suffolk County, believes police and wage or the prior income of the falsely convicted. On prosecutors need not just a shift in a few procedures, but a December 31, Lt. Gov. Kerry Healey, in Romney’s absence, fundamental change in attitude. Law enforcement officials signed into law a provision allowing those who have been need to be willing to explore every lead and every angle, not proven innocent after serving a year or more in jail to just the ones that promise speedy arrest and conviction. obtain up to $500,000 in compensation. “It’s the whole mentality that needs to change,”he says. Finally, there is the question of what to do about con- Bristol County DA Walsh admits that the techniques victions in cases where physical evidence was destroyed or law enforcement is now adopting have been too long in never existed at all. Givelber notes that all nine Innocence coming.“We all should have been on board for better uses, Project exonerations in New England stemmed from re- and more prevalent use, of scientific evidence,” he says, examination of DNA evidence. When choosing a case to both to reverse erroneous conviction and to ensure correct support—his group is studying 25 to 30 cases at a time, ones. “It’s a neutral scientific tool we should all embrace.” he says—“it comes down to whether there is biological And erroneous convictions aren’t solely the fault of law evidence that would or would not exonerate.” enforcement, Walsh insists. For every prosecutor involved That policy would have left Donnell Johnson out of in a false conviction, he says, the case also has a defense at- luck. He had no physical evidence to support his claims of torney, a judge, and a jury. But Walsh also recognizes that innocence. But he had a tenacious defense attorney in the burden of correcting the problem falls on offices like his. Stephen Hrones, who was assigned to his case at random one “Right now, we own this issue,”he says. day in 1994. An equally fortunate twist came when prosecutors stumbled across other suspects who fit both the Matt Kelly is a freelance writer in Somerville.

Judge Botsford is RIGHT

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts responded to the Supreme Judicial Court ruling in the McDuffy case in 1993 by establishing seven curriculum frameworks. These are the specifics developed by the state to ensure that all Massachusetts school children are provided with education that permits them to achieve the capabilities that are required by the Constitution. Yet, 12 years later in the Hancock case sequel, the Court must again take action.

“In sum, I conclude that contrary to its intended purpose, the foundation budget formula does not presently provide sufficient funds to the focus districts to permit them to implement the curriculum frameworks or to equip their students with the capabilities outlined in McDuffy.”

Superior Court Judge Margot Botsford Report to the Supreme Judicial Court Hancock v.Driscoll,April26,2004

Our children, our democracy, our economy, and our future depend on what we do. The Council for Fair School Finance • www.goodschoolsformass.org

This space generously donated by The Schott Foundation for Public Education.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 57 GREAT expectations Stepping out from behind the scenes, legislative leaders Travaglini and DiMasi take on doubters—and Romney

ust over two years ago, soon after he secured the “Trav” was hardly the Senate’s leading light. votes to become the new president of the “Doubting Thomases”— that’s how Travaglini refers Massachusetts state Senate, Robert Travaglini to those who wondered whether he was up to the job, and began talking to colleagues about what roles there were plenty of them when he picked up the gavel in they hoped to play under his leadership. Jack January 2003. But a funny thing happened on the way to a Hart, an affable South Boston lawmaker who quorum. With a new governor pledging to shake up the spent five years as a House backbencher before status quo with a raft of proposals he labeled “reform” and winning a special election to the Senate earlier the state in the throes of its worst budget crisis in more that year, told Travaglini that what he wanted most was than a decade, Travaglini grabbed the reform bull by the aJ chance to prove himself. “I said to him, ‘I would like to horns. Though known more for patronage than policy, roll my sleeves up and demonstrate to people that, yeah, Travaglini proved himself a fair match for the state’s I might be a known as a decent fellow and I might be a star-powered governor and the swaggering House Speaker, person of integrity, but I want to demonstrate that I am a Tom Finneran, who had come to be seen as the most person of substance, too,’” says Hart.“He said to me,‘Well, powerful figure on Beacon Hill. you and I, Jack, are in the same boat.’” Travaglini took office with some people thinking he The new Senate president did have something to prove. didn’t have “what it takes to survive in a pretty heated en- Travaglini had surprised many observers when he emerged vironment facing Romney and Finneran,”says Lou DiNatale, from a five-way field to capture the post Tom Birmingham director of the Center for Economic and Civic Opinion at the gave up in order to run for governor in 2002.After a decade University of Massachusetts–Lowell.“And bada boom, the in the Senate, Travaglini was one of its best-liked members, guy shows up and steals everybody’s lunch.” a behind-the-scenes player with a reputation for dogged In the pressure cooker of the past two fiscal-crisis years, advocacy on behalf of his East Boston-based district and an Travaglini’s Senate has won praise from advocates for pro- ability to broker compromise among colleagues. But when tecting programs while earning plaudits from government it came to the big issues, the man known to most simply as watchdogs for embracing a range of reform measures. Trav-

by michael jonas

58 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Senate President Robert Travaglini, left, and House Speaker Sal DiMasi may have what it takes to make friends—and tackle big issues. aglini has also responded to the yearning of his colleagues For lawmakers as well as outside observers, the hope for a greater role in the workings of the 40-member Senate, is that the changing of the guard in both houses will signal which many complained had become top-heavy under Bir- the revival of a Legislature that has atrophied badly in re- mingham, a leader who staked out strong positions on cent years, with rank-and-file members and even many every issue and became the driving force behind them. committee chairmen relegated to the sidelines (See “Beacon If Senate members had been quietly bridling under Ill,”CW, Fall ’02). If it does, there will be an unlikely pair of Birmingham’s strong hand, that was nothing compared to leaders to thank. Veteran politicos who have spent much the poisonous atmosphere that hung over the House of of their careers as backroom dealmakers, Travaglini and Representatives under Finneran’s reign. A sharp mind who DiMasi have never been identified with big legislative was also known for sharp elbows when it came to keeping initiatives. And they certainly have never been part of the his chamber in line, Finneran had become the state’s most clamoring for reform in the way the legislative branch does polarizing political figure by the time he abruptly resigned business. the Speaker’s post in September to become head of a But if there is a Nixon-goes-to-China feel to the idea of statewide biotechnology trade organization. Travaglini and DiMasi breathing new life into the Legis- In a transition of power that largely occurred over an lature, it’s because there are reasons to think the two Boston autumn weekend, House majority leader Salvatore DiMasi, lawmakers could be precisely the leaders to do so.Unburdened a longtime Finneran lieutenant, captured the Speaker’s by a wandering eye for higher political office—and arriving chair. A 13-term lawmaker from Boston’s heavily Italian- at their posts without preconceived policy agendas—Trav- American North End, DiMasi immediately pledged to open aglini and DiMasi may have exactly what it takes to tackle up the House for more give and take on important issues. big issues while simultaneously involving their members to The idea struck some as laughable, coming from someone a degree not seen in either branch for years. who had been the iron-fisted Finneran’s chief enforcer. But The two leaders can do nothing to stop the Thomases from others insisted that DiMasi would lead the House on a very doubting. But they alone have the power to prove them different course than the man he had served so loyally. wrong.

photographs by frank curran

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 59 ESSENTIALLY EASTIE political confidant who grew up with Travaglini and formerly To understand Bobby Travaglini, you need to understand served as general counsel to the Massachusetts Turnpike East Boston. Travaglini has spent his entire life in the tight- Authority, says Travaglini, now a 52-year-old father of three, knit neighborhood that is packed onto a peninsula along- watched his mother struggle to raise five sons and saw many side the constant roar of Logan Airport. One of five sons of other families eke out a living in East Boston. To Trav,Aloisi a working-class family whose father, Albert, died when he says,“the idea that government is there to help people is not was just 16, Travaglini says it was bonds he formed in that only not a foreign idea, it’s a natural idea.” overwhelmingly Italian-American neighborhood during Though a reliable vote for government programs that his youth that taught him the values of loyalty and friend- help people, Travaglini has mainly put his energy, as ship. And it was Tony Marmo, a city housing inspector and senator and, before that, as city councilor, into helping youth sports leader, who taught him many of those lessons. people in more direct ways. Michael McCormack, who “He was the guy, when my father died, who stepped to served with him on the Boston City Council, says Travaglini the plate for me,” says Travagalini. Marmo, now 86 and and his staff were on the phones all day “dealing with living in neighboring Winthrop, hired Travaglini to manage people with problems.”And sometimes, says McCormack, a summer youth recreation program he started in the late that problem was,“I need a job.” 1960s, and saw in him a future politician. For East Boston residents and politicians alike, living “He had a good speaking voice, he had the charm,”says alongside Logan Airport and at the end of tunnels running Marmo. under Boston Harbor has been both a curse and a blessing. In 1983, Marmo ran Travaglini’s first campaign, which While Travaglini has stood with residents as they’ve waged won the young man the district city council seat represent- battles against airport expansion, Massport, the quasi- ing East Boston, the North End, and Charlestown. Referring public agency that runs the airport, and the Massachusetts to the hundreds of East Boston youth who had come Turnpike Authority, which operates the harbor tunnels, through the local rec program but were by then of voting have also been a meal ticket for countless East Boston age, Marmo says, “I had a built-in committee of 1,000 or residents. More often than not, Travaglini has been the guy 1,200 people.” punching that meal ticket. No doubt some of them are present among the more “I think that these authorities have a responsibility than 100 people at Spinelli’s Function Room in East Boston, to provide employment opportunities for qualified indi- To Travaglini, says one friend,‘the idea that government is there to help people is not only not a foreign idea, it’s a natural idea.’ attending a mid-November Sunday brunch Travaglini is viduals who live in impacted communities, and I held them hosting to honor Marmo for his decades of service to the accountable to that, and I’m proud of that,”says Travaglini. community. When a reporter arrives to take in the event, “Joe Moakley used to say, if you don’t want to bring home Travaglini could not be more gracious, inviting him to sit the bacon, give it to me—I’ve got a big family.” at a table filled with neighborhood leaders.After he reels off “Some people criticized him,” says McCormack of introductions, Travaglini adds that the visitor is doing a story Travaglini’s job-placement prowess. “I didn’t. I thought, on him,“so don’t tell him a goddamn thing.” that’s what the expectation is, and nobody does it any Everyone breaks into laughter, but the quip reflects the better. He probably put more people to work than any three insular quality of the politics Travaglini has long practiced. people who served in government.” Travaglini has never had much use for the press, and even Job giveaways notwithstanding, Travaglini tangled in his new role as legislative leader, he’s hardly courting with the airport constantly during the 1990s, which meant coverage. banging heads with then-Massport director Stephen Tocco, Elected to the Senate in 1992—representing, in addition a longtime friend and golfing buddy. Today, Tocco runs to East Boston,Winthrop and parts of Revere and Cambridge ML Strategies, the lobbying arm of Mintz Levin, one of —Travaglini has, with little fanfare, consistently backed a the city’s most high-powered law firms. Although Tocco range of children’s and human service causes, including himself does not do State House lobbying, several ML serving as lead Senate sponsor of a bill to bring a single-payer Strategies employees, including former Worcester state sen- health insurance system to Massachusetts. Jim Aloisi, a close ator Robert Bernstein, are representing gaming interests

60 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 Travaglini on his line of work: “I’m in the delivery business. I don’t deliver, I’m out. And I’ve been able to deliver.” on Beacon Hill.With two racetracks in his district, Travaglini came to the posts with sharply defined views, leadership on has been a big booster of efforts to bring slot machines to issues has not been the usual path to legislative leadership. Massachusetts. But Travaglini insists that these ties in no way “The people who seem to rise are the people who are best compromise his independence. at navigating the social environment of the chamber,”says “I have a lot of friends in this business, but I never former state representative John McDonough.“They aren’t lose sight of who I am, and I’m very comfortable with my people who are overly fixated on one single issue or single character,”says Travaglini. set of issues.” His ability to make friends explains a lot about how If that explains how Travaglini emerged with the presi- Travaglini became the state Senate’s 93rd president.“Frankly, dent’s gavel in hand, it offered little indication of what he he has the best people skills I’ve ever seen,”says Sen. Steven would do with the newly gained power. Tolman,a Brighton Democrat. “He wasn’t really out there on the forefront of a lot of REFORM THIS different issues, but everyone in the building knew if With a B.A. from Harvard and a Georgetown law degree, you wanted to get something done, you had to go see Trav,” Michael Travaglini is the brainy yin to his older brother’s says Sen. Steven Baddour of Methuen. streetwise yang. The younger Travaglini, who served as Even now, as he holds court in the palatial office of the deputy treasurer to Shannon O’Brien and now directs the Senate president, Travaglini says that when he’s asked his line state pension fund, is one of the Senate president’s most of work, “I simply say, I’m in the delivery business. I don’t trusted advisors. Still, there are plenty of times when big deliver, I’m out. And I’ve been able to deliver.” brother knows best. Michael Travaglini says after pulling off In electing Travaglini—as with the recent election of a coup of some kind, whether in the Legislature or back in DiMasi as House Speaker—the Legislature has, in some his days on the Boston City Council, his brother would ways, reverted to form.While their immediate predecessors often turn to him and say with a self-satisfied smile,“Mike,

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 61 you can’t read that on page 12.” Beacon Hill, where lawmakers questioned the purported “His point was, there is academic intelligence, and there savings. Doubts about the Romney plan deepened when two is life intelligence,”says Michael Travaglini. influential business groups, the Massachusetts Taxpayers If he came to the Senate president’s office with plenty of Foundation and the Artery Business Committee, issued a life intelligence, Travaglini makes no bones about what he report in May that was critical of the proposed asphalt- was lacking. agencies merger. “I understood what I was good at and what I wasn’t good But rather than push the idea of transportation reform at,”he says.“My interpersonal skills, my political skills, and aside, the Senate one-upped the administration, rolling my character were above the norm,”says Travaglini.“[But] out a sweeping proposal last spring that called for consoli- I never really involved myself in all of the issues confronting dation of the state’s transportation functions and for the Commonwealth. I had to get up to speed quickly.” making the state secretary of transportation chairman of As he did so, Travaglini was hardly hemmed in by public the governing boards of the turnpike authority, Massport, expectations. A Boston Globe poll taken three months and the Massachusetts Aeronautics Commission, which after he took office found that 84 percent of Massachusetts residents either didn’t know him or had no opinion of him. “I found it wonderfully refreshing and very liberating that nobody knew me,” he says. Travaglini says he also felt lib- erated by life-shaking health threats he faced in the year before becoming Senate president. He underwent thyroid cancer surgery and a heart bypass operation all in a matter of months, experiences he says have given him the perspective to brush off the petty slights of politics and to seize the opportunity to make a difference. Travaglini indicated from the start that he would vigorously champion many of the social service programs he had supported over the years. But he also made clear that he was ready to engage the debate over reforms to state Travaglini’s defense of social programs earned him an award from Barbara Brown government that Romney had and Michael Weekes, of the Massachusetts Council of Human Service Providers. used as his campaign platform. “Our policy-making role is not to cripple or eliminate oversees regional airports. programs of obvious social importance,” he said at his “He challenged us to come up with reform that was swearing in on New Year’s Day 2003.“Rather, we should pre- real,”Baddour, the Senate transportation committee chair- serve them by taking necessary legislative action to improve man, says of Travaglini. operations, eliminate waste, and make certain that the pub- Along with the transportation plan, which Romney lic is getting the maximum return on every dollar spent.” embraced enthusiastically, the Senate took the lead in efforts If politics is like poker, Travaglini often managed to call to restructure the state’s patchwork system of human ser- Romney’s bet—and then raise him. One of Romney’s vices and revise public-construction laws—with support reform gambits was a proposal to merge the state highway of both labor and business leaders as well as Romney— department with the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, a and was a partner in a major restructuring of the state’s move the administration claimed would yield $190 million school building assistance program. in one-time savings and reduce state road costs by about $20 “From a reform point of view, it was one of the most million annually. The proposal received a cool reception on productive years in decades, and I think the Senate deserves

62 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 a lot of credit for that,” says Michael Widmer, president of “Trav was able to keep it focused on the issues and the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation.“Those are issues wouldn’t give up, despite repeated insistence by Finneran that have been around for a long time and have resisted that he would never agree to it,” says McDonough, the efforts to improve them or address them.” former legislator, who now heads the advocacy group For his part, Travaglini readily admits that the impetus Health Care for All. “To me that was kind of a spectacular came from Romney, but insists that, in the end, the Legis- achievement.” lature outreformed the governor.“I think that the governor was the catalyst that sparked all of this reform movement. MARRIAGE VOWS But the Legislature did it in a responsible and professional If part of Travaglini’s success comes from an ability to stand way. It dealt with the details, and it realized the ramifications firm without escalating differences into bitter confrontation, of the actions,”he says. that skill was never more apparent than in last year’s debate “He’s not a policy wonk,”says Steve Tocco of his friend. over a constitutional amendment on same-sex marriage. “[But] he understands how to get policy implemented.” Most members of the House and Senate, which deliber- Along with tapping his newfound reform impulse, ate jointly when considering proposed amendments, went Travaglini surprised many with his success at battling on into the Constitutional Convention favoring either an out- behalf of constituencies and programs that were in the right ban on same-sex marriage or complete acceptance of budget-cutting crosshairs as the state faced a $3 billion the Supreme Judicial Court’s historic 2003 decree legalizing deficit. In his first budget negotiations, Travaglini managed gay marriage. But when the tension-filled days of debate to preserve funding for the state’s senior citizen prescription were over, lawmakers had given initial approval to a com- drug program, which Romney proposed eliminating, and promise amendment sponsored by Travaglini and Senate he won restoration of health care benefits to most of the minority leader Brian Lees that would ban gay marriage but 36,000 adults who had been trimmed from the rolls of provide for state-sanctioned “civil unions” for same-sex MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program for the poor and partners with all the rights and privileges of marriage. disabled, despite opposition from the House Speaker. It was an outcome that satisfied neither side but nonethe-

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 63 less passed by majority vote, a classic display of Travaglini’s brokering skills. Travaglini also retained his cool in the face of a bold move by Finneran to hijack the proceedings. Finneran introduced a gay-marriage ban at the convention’s outset, when Trav- aglini had recognized him for what the Senate president thought were to be only opening remarks. “He and I had a private conversation,”Travaglini says of the way he and Finneran settled accounts from the episode. “Where I come from, and the way I was brought up, you don’t do that. It provoked a passionate response on my behalf—that I will say.” In November, several months after advancing a legal ban on civil marriage for gays, Travaglini delivered a heartfelt toast at the wedding reception of Cambridge state Sen. Jarrett Barrios and his longtime partner, political and media consultant Doug Hattaway. This left observers wondering whether Travaglini truly objected to same-sex marriage at all —and if he would continue to push an amendment banning it. But Arline Isaacson of the Massachusetts Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus says she didn’t presume any change in his stance. “That’s treating someone you know in a caring and compassionate way, and that’s quintessential Travaglini,” Isaacson says of the wedding toast.“He’s a man of the heart. But I won’t pretend that means he’s changed his mind. Different body part.” Travaglini, who as Senate president presides over the Constitutional Convention, says he plans to convene the joint session again this year, and that he intends to push for the Legislature to give a second approval to his amendment, which will place the measure on the 2006 statewide ballot. As for his first two-year term at the Senate helm, Travag- lini doesn’t hold back his satisfaction in having dazzled the doubters. “All of those questions as to what is the true character and true makeup of Bobby Travaglini—I think they now know,”he says.“The business community is very pleased with what I’ve done. The advocates are very pleased with what I’ve done. And those who occupy political office are very pleased with what I’ve done.”

SAL-UTATIONS On a Thursday afternoon in October, about 70 people are gathered at the Milky Way, a hip Jamaica Plain restaurant and lounge featuring trendy beers and candlepin bowling. The Milky Way is run by a trio of grass-roots activists, and the crowd is thick with liberal stalwarts and Latino leaders who’ve been invited by the local state representative, Jeffrey Sanchez. The big draw is Sal DiMasi, the newly elected Speaker of the House of Representatives.After Sanchez gives him a warm introduction, peppered with a little Spanish for the bilingual audience, DiMasi takes the microphone. “Gracias, amigo,”he says to Sanchez, his awkward Spanish

64 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 on Beacon Hill. If DiMasi’s liberal views seem a little out of sync with the more conservative values of the narrow North End streets where he grew up, he says it was in that Italian- American enclave that he came to believe in the basic tenets of fairness he often cites in explaining his political views. When he gave a rare floor speech during last year’s Constitutional Conven- tion, DiMasi recalled his Italian immigrant grandfather’s passion for reading the US Constitution as he declared his opposition to any amendment that would restrict marriage rights for same- sex couples. A strapping 6-foot-2, DiMasi was a standout football player at Christopher Columbus High School. “I thought I was going to get scholarships to some very good schools for football,” he says. But a serious injury in a touch football game when he was 16, which nearly cost him his life and led to the removal of DiMasi’s spleen, ended his athletic career. DiMasi channeled his competitive drive into other pursuits, including chess, for which he was a reigning champion in the North End. “You have to anticipate moves in advance,and that’s what I like to do in politics,” he says. DiMasi cuts a considerably more liberal profile than the man he replaced. Also good training for his later pursuits were the bartend- ing jobs he held while working filtered through a thick Boston accent.“My Italian’s not too his way through Suffolk Law School. “I listened up and good, either,”he adds, drawing a laugh. With a mix of self- down to everybody’s problems, and I related the listening effacing humor and from-the-heart homily, DiMasi is off with making tips. So it was a good start,”says DiMasi. and running, charming the crowd with tales of the North After law school, DiMasi, 59, worked as an assistant dis- End tenement life he was born into and the causes of the trict attorney in Suffolk County. But his professional career little guy that upbringing has led him to champion. has been defined by the House seat he was first elected to in Truth be told, DiMasi probably won over lots of those in 1978 and the lucrative criminal defense practice he has the room just by being there. Despite serving as Tom maintained throughout his 26 years in office. Finneran’s right-hand man as House majority leader, In describing the difference between Finneran and DiMasi cuts a considerably more liberal profile than the man DiMasi, one former lawmaker who knows both men well he replaced, and House liberals—as well as advocates for says,“Both are city kids who grew up in rough and tumble everything from affordable housing to gay marriage and Boston. Tommy picked himself up from the bootstraps and stem-cell research—see in him fresh hope for their causes thinks anybody could. Sal takes very different lessons from

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 65 similar experience—that you’ve got to be there for other delinquent taxes. people when they need you.” And in 1990, a “Spotlight” series on the state court system charged that DiMasi was one of six politically con- UNDER THE SPOTLIGHT nected lawyers, four of them state legislators, who enjoyed That “be there for other people”credo has shaped DiMasi’s rates of acquittal and favorable plea agreements far higher liberal-leaning outlook on everything from social service than those of other lawyers in Boston Municipal Court. spending to gay rights, for which he was an early supporter Much of DiMasi’s criminal defense work takes place in the in the Legislature. But DiMasi has also operated under the BMC, an anachronism of the state judicial system in which shadow of charges that he has also been willing to pull the the court serving Boston’s downtown neighborhoods has levers of public power for more questionable purposes. operated as department distinct from all other district In 1999, a Boston Globe “Spotlight” report claimed that courts across the Commonwealth. The Globe series sug- DiMasi was behind legislation that removed resale restric- gested that politically powerful attorneys found favor with tions on 61 units of affordable housing in his North End dis- judges in the BMC, who depend on lawmakers for the trict. The Globe said the change could yield a windfall of court’s annual operating budget. $146,000 for DiMasi’s brother as well as an aunt and niece, DiMasi rejects all the charges as baseless, and on some who all owned condos in the Lincoln Warf complex. he has corroboration. A panel chaired by then-Suffolk Law In the late 1980s, questions were raised about DiMasi’s School dean Paul Sugarman reviewed the cases cited in the role in fighting a bill that would have restricted the work of Globe series and concluded that there was no evidence a former law client and business partner who operated as an of impropriety in the cases DiMasi handled—although “heir finder,” locating individuals unaware of property it did recommend that legislator-lawyers be “limited or claims they could make on the estate of deceased relatives. prohibited” from practicing in the state’s trial courts. The bill, which passed in 1990 over DiMasi’s opposition, As for the North End condominium project where his limited to 40 years the time in which heirs could step relatives live, DiMasi says it was the MBTA, which owned forward to stop a land-taking by a municipality because of and developed the project, that wanted to cut short the

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66 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 A HOUSE UNITED? On the September weekend that DiMasi—in a late-night meeting in his North End condo with his chief rival, John Rogers, which Finner- an reportedly arranged— sealed the deal to become Speaker, the lawmaker took a congratulatory phone call from veteran human services lobbyist Judy Meredith. “I’m 59 years old, and I want to do a Bobby Trav- aglini,” DiMasi told her, she says. “And I knew exactly what he meant.” After nearly 30 years in the Legislature, DiMasi was assuming the reins of power with little in the way of a public profile, and a reputation among State House watchers as a Beacon Hill bon vivant who enjoyed the At “Sal DiMasi Day” in the North End—a tribute to the local boy made good. perks of public office—and was willing to use his power affordable housing covenants.“I told them I didn’t want to as Finneran’s top lieutenant to put reps in their place. After have anything to do with it because it was in my district,” watching Travaglini defy expectations in his first two years says DiMasi. While DiMasi did not file the legislation, the by showing leadership on serious issues facing the state and 1999 Globe report claims the bill was drafted by members bringing a new collegiality to the workings of a dispirited of DiMasi’s staff and that he personally took credit for the Senate, Meredith says DiMasi seemed determined to do the bill in a letter to an owner in the condo complex. Of the same. questions about his role, DiMasi says, “I got a letter of ex- He will have his work cut out for him. Almost immedi- oneration from the ethics committee,”a reference, his office ately after winning the Speaker’s post in September, DiMasi After watching Travaglini defy expectations, DiMasi seems determined to do the same. says, to correspondence from the state ethics commission. formed a committee of legislators to recommend reforms (DiMasi declined to make available a copy of the letter.) in House rules that critics—Democrats out of favor with Though he resents the stigma associated with the news- leadership and Republicans alike—say were molded by paper éxposés, DiMasi says that, for a politician, charges like Finneran over the years to tightly control the flow of legis- these come with the territory. He says a favorite cartoon of lation. But for some, it was hard to believe that DiMasi, who his shows a man in a doctor’s office complaining about a sharp at times seemed to relish the role of enforcer as much as his pain in his back.When the doctor asks him to turn around, Speaker relied upon him to play it, will deliver the House there is a huge dagger sticking out. “The doctor says, ‘I told from Finneran’s tight grip. you, if you’re going to be in politics, you have to get used to But that is not what they say in the House. To consider the pain.’” DiMasi as Finneran’s leg-breaker is a caricature, they say.As

REPUBLISHED WITH PERMISSION OF GLOBE NEWSPAPER COMPANY, INC. WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 67 much as he was part of Finneran’s team, DiMasi often tried ers by surprise, and with the third-candidate caucus not even to play the role of conciliator, the behind-the-scenes peace- able to agree on a standard bearer, most of them jumped into maker trying to heal rifts in a House torn by division from DiMasi’s camp, helping to seal his triumph over Rogers, who the moment Finneran assumed power nine years ago. That agreed to serve as majority leader under DiMasi. experience, they say, will serve him well in the days ahead. It was a far cry from the bruising leadership battle of “My sense is that Sal is the right guy at the right time and 1996, when Finneran pulled a stunning end-around by at the right place in his life to do a really bang-up job,”says striking a deal with Republican House members to support Rep. Harriet Stanley, a one-time Finneran ally who grew his bid against then-majority leader Richard Voke, who increasingly critical of his leadership, losing her committee enjoyed the support of a majority of House Democrats. chairmanship as a result. Even in his personal life, the one- “Sal doesn’t come in taking the place over under the time high-lifer has settled down. Remarried four years ago, same circumstances as Finneran,”says Rep. Charles Murphy, and now a doting father to his wife’s two children, DiMasi a Burlington Democrat who entered the House in 1997. seems more grounded these days, colleagues say. “That’s a “When I came in, there was still blood on the floor.” While House members are anxious for a bigger role, they’re also mindful of the need for a forceful leader who can bring discipline. different Sal than we’ve seen in the past,”says Stanley. For all the talk of change in the House, some members And it will be a different House, says DiMasi. “My style are just as glad that the change won’t be so dramatic.“This is going to be inclusive,”he says.“It’s going to be empower- is not a revolution,”says Marzilli. “There’s a lot of damage ing of the members. I mean that committee work is going done in revolutions, and the good guys don’t always win.” to be meaningful, and chairmen will have an obligation or While many House members are anxious to keep DiMasi responsibility for decision making.” to his word on giving committee chairmen and rank-and- Rep. Angelo Scaccia, who chaired the powerful House file members a bigger role, they are also mindful of the rules committee under Finneran and is one of DiMasi’s clos- need for a forceful leader who can bring discipline, when est friends in the Legislature, is convinced that DiMasi will needed, to the 160-member body, a task often likened to be different from Finneran.“Tommy was always involved [in herding cats. House members don’t want an autocrat in every matter] from Stage One,”says Scaccia.“I’m not so sure charge, says Marzilli, but neither do they want the chamber Sal’s going to be involved from Stage One.” run by “the virgin homecoming queen.” Indeed, some members say that, whatever comes out On that score, there is little to worry about. In one of the of DiMasi’s rules-reform committee, the rules may be less more notorious episodes of DiMasi hardball politics, in important than the ruler. “I always thought fights over the early 2001, DiMasi told Rep. Doug Petersen in a weekend legislative rules were a surrogate for battles over power,”says phone call that he couldn’t be sure what the consequences Rep. James Marzilli of Arlington, who was part of the small would be if Petersen persisted in voting not to weaken the group of Democrats who regularly challenged Finneran. state’s controversial “Clean Elections”law, as the leadership “Depending on who’s holding the gavel, the system can work was proposing. Petersen voted “off”the leadership line, and either really good or bad. So change will be made in the tone was removed the next week as chairman of the Natural set by Sal.” Resources and Agriculture Committee when Finneran That tone may be more collegial not only because of who’s announced new committee assignments. holding the gavel but how he came to hold it. In the months Asked now about the episode of arm-twisting-followed- leading up to Finneran’s departure, DiMasi and John Rogers, by-retribution, Petersen is willing to chalk it up to a differ- the more conservative chairman of the House Ways and ent era. “I’m assuming and hoping that that was loyalty to Means committee, were actively soliciting support for bids Tom Finneran,”Petersen says. to succeed the Mattapan lawmaker. A loosely organized “If you really knew Sal, that’s not his M.O. in life,” says group of 30 to 40 representatives, which included the 18 lib- Richard Iannella, a former Boston city councilor and long- eral dissidents who had voted for Byron Rushing in his largely time friend of DiMasi’s. “He’s a bridge builder. He’s not a symbolic challenge to Finneran in January 2003, had hoped bully.” to back a third candidate when the leadership transition Indeed, many Beacon Hill insiders say DiMasi often finally came. But Finneran’s fast exit caught many lawmak- worked tirelessly behind the scenes to bridge the gulf

68 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 between Finneran and liberal lawmakers on various issues, game will suffer. Indeed, for DiMasi, serious business often even if not always successfully.“You would hear from other involves a good bottle of wine or a round of golf. people in those meetings how hard Sal worked,” says “Let me tell you, in any business, and in anything that you Meredith, the longtime human services lobbyist.“He’d joke, do, when you socialize and understand and learn things he’d fool around,” she says, looking for any way to get about people, etcetera, I think that’s extremely important,” Finneran to give a little. says DiMasi, who drops “etcetera” into sentences where Even the badly outnumbered House Republicans, whose others sprinkle “uhs” and “ohs.”“There’s no barriers. And ranks are now down to 21 members, see hope for a new when you play golf, [when] you go out to dinner, I think chance at least to have their voices heard. that happens.” “I have an agenda that I would like to see carry the day,” For DiMasi, that happens a lot. According to campaign says Brad Jones, the House Republican leader. “But on a finance reports, in 2003, DiMasi was reimbursed from his more realistic level, I have an agenda that I would like to campaign account $11,931 for 103 separate credit card have see the light of day.” charges, many for meals with Beacon Hill colleagues, and he charged his campaign account $4,982 for golf fees, covering CHIP SHOTS himself and the lawmakers in his company, at the Ipswich At a North End fete in early November celebrating DiMasi’s Country Club, where he has long been a member. rise to the Speaker’s position, Boston Mayor Tom Menino For Rep. Frank Smizik, a love of golf may prove to be poked some fun at DiMasi’s most well-known passion. “I worth more than any elaborate policy pronouncement. A know your golf game will not improve, but our representa- Brookline Democrat, Smizik was elected to office in 2000 by tion in the State House will improve because you’ll be there charging that the incumbent Democrat was too cozy with for the folks in our society who need you the most,”Menino Finneran. It was an effective campaign message in one of the told DiMasi. state’s most liberal communities, but it meant Smizik was While DiMasi’s responsibilities are certainly greater relegated to the margins once he took office.With a leader- than they’ve ever been, there’s no reason to think his golf ship change clearly in the offing, last summer he broke

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 69 bread—and hit the links—with Finneran’s chief lieutenant, tical stares from other corners. cementing a friendship and an agreement to support DiMasi “We don’t expect to see much difference,” says Barbara in his bid to succeed Finneran. Anderson, the longtime director of Citizens for Limited “My feeling was, I didn’t want to be a liberal dissident for Taxation. “Sal DiMasi was in lockstep with the Speaker my entire career,” says Smizik, explaining his break from [Finneran] right from the beginning,” says Anderson, many other House liberals who were hoping for a third who was as critical of Finneran for his short-circuiting of candidate to emerge in the Speaker’s battle. “I’m the only public process in House proceedings as for his embrace of progressive who plays golf—that helped.” new taxes. In what passes for a charitable welcome from the “I recognize that Frank Smizik has an awful lot of talent,” hard-bitten veteran of Beacon Hill battles,Anderson says of says DiMasi. “Frank and I became very good friends, and the new Speaker, “You give a guy a chance—until he does I respect his opinion.” the expected.” While Smizik is anxious to assume a more active role in the business of the House, whether everyone will take to the MANDATE FOR WHAT? new member-empowerment promised by DiMasi remains As the Legislature begins a new session, the dominance of to be seen. Democrats in both chambers is remarkable even by Massa- “It’s a test for them, too,”Meredith says of those House chusetts standards. As a result, there is lots of talk among members who have squawked the loudest for a larger role. Democrats of driving straight over a badly weakened gov- “Imagine, finally being taken seriously.You better come up ernor. It’s a view that Travaglini does little to dispel.“I now with something that’s pretty good.” have a mandate, the Speaker of the House now has a man- The same could be said for DiMasi, whom many are date…and we are going to define policy and the direction looking to as the kind of leader who will return the House of the Commonwealth,”says Travaglini. to a place where vigorous debate takes place. DiMasi may be That may be dismissing Romney a little too quickly. As in the unenviable position of having raised expectations governor, he retains a public stature and ability to draw news among those looking for change, while still drawing skep- coverage far beyond that of any other state official, includ-

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70 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 ing Travaglini and DiMasi.What’s more, Romney’s two-part the number of Massachusetts residents without health mantra of no-new-taxes and reform of state government insurance in half within two years. Travaglini vowed to seek has, in fact, set the terms for much of the activity on Beacon out creative, market-based solutions to the plight of the Hill over the past two years. uninsured, disavowing new taxes or employer mandates as Even assuming the Democratic Legislature holds most ways to increase coverage. of the political capital on Beacon Hill, exactly how do the It was an attention-grabbing move that set in motion a leaders plan to spend it? In the run-up to the new session, flurry of activity in health care unlike anything seen on DiMasi offered little hint of the agenda he would pursue as Beacon Hill in almost a decade. For months, the Romney House leader. He also kept his cards close to the vest on the administration had said it was working on a plan to address In fact, Romney’s stands against taxes and in favor of government reform have set the terms for much of the activity on Beacon Hill. most anticipated move of his early tenure—the announce- the problem of the uninsured, but Travaglini’s foray ment of committee chairmanships and other leadership seemed to spur the governor into action. Within days, the positions, appointments that may provide clues to the administration, which had said it wouldn’t even be releas- direction the House will take on a range of issues. ing the “principles”of its health care plan until the new year, In November, Travaglini outlined one big issue he plans suddenly jumped out of the box, with Romney authoring to tackle, announcing at a meeting of health care advocates an op-ed piece in the Globe, in which he offered up a sketchy that he will be rolling out an initiative aimed at cutting plan to offer coverage to all residents, with a similar reliance

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 71 on market-based approaches. (The governor’s plan is elab- work with the new House Speaker, and they have nothing orated, and accompanied by responses from advocates, but good things to say about Travaglini’s first session pre- business, and insurers, in Argument and Counterpoints, siding over the Senate. “The Senate president, I think, has page 98.) surprised people with his commitment to reform,” says Romney aides say they’re eager to work with lawmakers Fehrnstrom. “It’s a fact of life that people in politics get to craft a plan all parties can embrace.“With the election over, stereotyped, sometimes unfairly.” now it’s time for all of us to extend the hand of goodwill to Travaglini undoubtedly couldn’t agree with him more. the other side and work together,” says Eric Fehrnstrom, It was Fehrnstrom’s boss who helped introduce Travaglini Romney’s communication director. to statewide view with campaign ads in 2002 that placed the That was clearly Romney’s intent as he mounted a post- incoming Senate president in the “Gang of Three,”a troika election push to curry favor with Democratic legislators he made up of Travaglini, Finneran, and Democratic nominee had tried so hard to drive out of office. Romney asked Shannon O’Brien, the lot of them portrayed as responsible Travaglini and DiMasi to dine with him in the North End, for the patronage-soaked “mess on Beacon Hill” Romney and he invited top Democrats to his Belmont home for vowed to clean up. Last fall, Romney-backed legislative some holiday cheer. In November, Jack Hart, the South candidates pushed a similar message, branding Democratic Boston state senator, suddenly got a call inviting him to meet incumbents as reform-resistant toadies of the Boston with the governor. Hart describes their half-hour get- politicians running the Legislature. together as an informal get-acquainted session, with some “I don’t think that’s something that’s going to be easily general discussion of state issues. forgotten,” says Sen. Richard Moore. Lawmakers may not “I think it’s a sound move for him to make, to reach out “let it get in the way of what needs to get done, but I don’t to people,” says Hart, who had little contact with Romney think they’re going to be looking to do the governor any over the previous two years.“I was a little bit surprised, but special favors, either,”says the Uxbridge Democrat. pleasantly surprised.” “I applaud him for re-energizing incumbents in the Meanwhile, administration officials say they’re eager to Democratic Party,” says Travaglini, in a backhanded

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72 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 compliment to the governor. With Travaglini and DiMasi more in sync on issues than Birmingham and Finneran, some Beacon Hill players think the Democrat-controlled House and Senate may be able to pursue a common agenda in a way that was not possible in recent years, when the two chambers often spent as much time battling each other as they did a succession of Repub- lican governors. That could put the Legislature in an unusually strong position in working with the governor—or defying him. “We have the possibility, for the first time in a long time, of the two branches working together on a Democratic agenda against a Republican administration, and working with a Republican administration for the good of the people when there is common ground,” says Sen. Stanley Rosenberg, an Amherst Democrat. But that doesn’t necessarily mean the state is off to the races, in programs or spending.“They’re pragmatic people,” Tocco says of Travaglini and DiMasi. “They’re not driven by ideology, and I think that presents real opportunity, because to be pragmatic you have to listen, you have to be inclusive, and you have to realize there are many ways to solve big problems.”

hile both men realize they now carry far weightier responsibilities than in the past, when Wthey were simply sticking up for their districts, it would be foolish to think that two lawmakers who built their careers on going to bat for those they represent won’t be looking out for those who brought them to the pinnacle of power. A month after his visit with Jamaica Plain activists at the Milky Way, the new House leader is standing on more familiar ground. It’s “Sal DiMasi Day” in the North End, and local leaders have organized a tribute to the local boy made good, the state’s first Italian-American House Speaker. Several hundred residents are gathered on the Prado, a cobblestone pedestrian mall that runs between Hanover Street, the neighborhood’s busy main thoroughfare, and the grounds of the famed Old North Church on Salem Street. “I am proud to be an Italian-American. I am proud to be Speaker of the House. But I am most proud to be a North Ender,”DiMasi says to the crowd. When it’s his turn to honor his new partner on the bridge of the Legislature, Travaglini speaks of their broad commitment to shaping policy on health care, education, and the economy. “I am excited about the responsibilities he and I will share,” Travaglini tells the crowd. “And to all of those who live close by,” he adds, referencing DiMasi’s North End neighborhood, which also happens to sit in Trav- aglini’s own state Senate district, “I wouldn’t recommend relocation.” This space generously donated by Commonwealth Corporation.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 73 Meeting him halfway In a mid-term visit, Gov. Romney talks about what he’s learned and what he’s got planned for the next two years—and four more after that

Recently, as I contemplated Massachusetts His successor,Paul Cellucci,bailed out of the politics, my mind turned to physics. Since sci- corner office soon after his two-year anniversary ence was never my strong suit, this is by no as governor.But that was after seven years as lieu- means a common occurrence. But it crossed tenant governor and one year as acting gover- my mind that one way to think about the lack nor, not to mention 24 years in the Legislature of staying power among the Republicans who and,before that,service as selectman in Hudson. have occupied the State House corner office The job he seemed to have been angling for his Rcontinuously since 1991 is the phenomenon of entire political career may not have been all he exponential decay. Specifically, it struck me expected it to be, but when Cellucci accepted that the half-life of our GOP governors has President Bush’s offer of the ambassadorship gotten shorter and shorter. to Canada, at least he’d paid his dues. Bill Weld, whose attention span was noto- Cellucci’s departure for Ottawa shortly riously short, served a full term, won re-elec- after passing the mid-term mark was much on tion, and was more than halfway into his my mind as I went to see Gov. Mitt Romney in second before succumbing to wanderlust. His December,just short of his first-term midpoint. 1996 challenge of US Sen. John Kerry doesn’t I had done the same with Cellucci (see “Hang- really count: Moving up the elected-office food ing Tough,” CW, Winter ’01) and was starting chain is something of a natural instinct for to wonder whether I was a jinx. I didn’t spend politicians, and Weld can’t be faulted for taking much time in the company of governors, but a shot. His sudden urge to become a diplomat when I did they seemed poised to move on. —something no one would have thought to Of course, Romney, now just two years into call him—soon thereafter is another matter. his first term in his first elective office, has not When he resigned from office in 1997, osten- left—yet—and he may not do so for some sibly to fight the opposition from members of time to come.Yet the rumor mill grinds away: his own party to his nomination to be ambas- He won’t finish his term; he’ll finish this term sador to Mexico, it seemed not just a desperate but not run for re-election. He won’t run for attempt to salvage his nomination but a handy re-election because he’s running for president excuse for getting out of the rest of his term as in 2008; he will run for re-election because he’s governor. running for president in 2008. He’s going by robert keough | photographs by mark ostow

74 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 75 to/not going to run for re-election because he’s running for erning from a minority position. Was there anything he US Senate in 2008—and so it goes, and goes, and goes. would have done differently, had he known what he knows In part, this is just the parlor game that the political now? hot-stove league plays to keep itself amused in the off-sea- “I’ve made, I’m sure, plenty of mistakes and I’d do some son. Still, I had to wonder whether the restlessness, actual things differently if I could go back”—not that he named or presumed, now being ascribed to Romney has become an any—“I’m sure that could be said by anyone. I do feel, intrinsic part of being a Republican governor presiding though, that [my] approach has worked pretty well in the over a Democratic state, and especially a Democratic state last couple of years.” Legislature. Is there something inherently unsatisfying about And how would he characterize his approach? “Let me governing from a minority position that makes the office tell you how I’ve worked and what seems to be effective. On something to be left at the first opportunity? “I think it’s the press and the public’s infatuation” with national politics and the presumed attraction of national office that fuels the rumor mill, Romney said. That specu- lation should, in his view, be dampened by the actual track record of Massachusetts politicians who have sought national office, which he noted “has not been particularly stellar.” He ticks off the Bay State presidential casualty list: “[Paul] Tsongas, Sen. [Edward] Kennedy, Mike Dukakis, now John Kerry.You have to recognize it’s not exactly a path- way paved with success.” When it comes to him specifically, Romney took issue with the idea that the jobs in Washington, DC, hold any attraction over the one he’s doing now.“I like the job I’ve got,” said Romney.“I’m able to do things as a governor that [US] senators only dream about. We’re able to take on tough issues, build consensus around them, and make extraordinary change that is helpful to the people of the state.”In contrast,

ON HIS BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT: ‘We haven’t made more progress in reforming education—yet.’ he said,“I look at our senators there and congressmen, they have to do an awful lot of talk and get very little done. “We got a lot done here in the last two years,”continued Romney.“Frankly, I think we got more done in the last two issues where there are not powerful special interests aligned years than I expected I could get done in the first four years. with the Democratic Party, we’re able to work on a very I’m pretty pleased with what’s been done. The Legislature collaborative basis between the Legislature and the admin- deserves a huge amount of credit for that, of course. I get istration to get things done. nothing done without their support. So I like the job and I’m “Then there are those topics where there is an entrenched keeping it. I’ll serve all four years and hopefully four after special interest aligned with one party or another,”Romney that.” (A complete transcript of my interview with Gov. continued. “When those types of issues arise I’ve taken Romney is available at www.massinc.org.) much more of a campaign approach, meaning go to the public, call for change, try to create a lot of energy around LOOKING FOR LEVERAGE the issue and overcome the special interests that may be Still, from inauguration day on, Romney has been, like his putting pressure on my colleagues across the aisle.” Republican predecessors, operating without a net in the Asked for an example of one of those special-interest- Legislature. Weld alone enjoyed a veto-sustaining bloc of tinged controversies, Romney cited education reform. Republicans in the Senate, and only for his first two years “Anytime you deal with education you’re dealing with the in office. I asked Romney what he has learned about gov- teachers’ unions, and they have a very strong view on what

76 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 changes they will accept and will not accept. So in education MID-TERM GRADE: INCOMPLETE I come out and make more of a campaign, if you will, to try On education, however, Romney acknowledged that he has and generate public support, to give the Legislature the by no means overcome the “interests”he has taken on.Indeed, cover and the encouragement necessary to make positive when asked about his greatest disappointment to date, change.” Romney said, “My biggest disappointment is we haven’t Drunk driving is another issue on which Romney said made more progress in reforming education—yet.” Of he used public leverage to his advantage.“We were the last course, he touted the new John and Abigail Adams Scholar- state in America to finally have a per se drunk driving law. ships (“The top quarter of our high school graduates will There were entrenched interests that didn’t want to see that be able to go to a Massachusetts college or university tuition- changed.” Romney declined to say so (“Well, I’ll let people free. That’s extraordinary. That’s unprecedented in the na- surmise who might have been on the opposite side”), but it tion.”) and the school building assistance program, which was the criminal-defense bar that resisted making a 0.8 was restructured to clear the backlog of school construction reading on the Breathalyzer test sufficient evidence of projects. driving “impairment.” In citing these achievements, Romney made no mention “But there was enough public attention and enough of the criticisms leveled at the scholarship program: that willingness on the part of some extraordinary Democrats” a small proportion of poor or minority students qualified, —in this case, he said, it was House Criminal Justice and for those who did the tuition waiver amounted to mea- Committee chairman James Vallee—“to go against power- ger support, given that fees levied at public higher educa- ful constituencies, to say, ‘I’m behind this. We’re putting it tion institutions can be as much as four times as great. on the floor.’ We got it out there. We got it to a vote and it And in school building assistance, he took no note of the passed unanimously, because once it’s in the light of day no fact that the refinancing scheme he signed into law was one one wants to be against tougher drunk-driving sanctions.” of Treasurer Tim Cahill’s devising, not his. These two mea- That long-pending bill passed in time for July 4th weekend sures nonetheless count as Romney triumphs, a fact that of 2003. never fails to rankle lawmakers.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 77 It’s the third leg of his “legacy of learning” education- NOT SUCH A HEAD START reform stool that Romney is still struggling to secure: what One education innovation Romney seemed to have his he calls “reforms to help our underperforming school doubts about is early-childhood education. Last year, the districts—to give the principals and superintendents of Legislature embarked, without objection from the governor, schools the ability to hire and fire, to pay merit bonuses, to on a process of creating a new Department of Early Educa- give additional money to science and math teachers.” Said tion and Care, a single agency devoted to serving the edu- Romney, “These kinds of reforms we made progress on— cational and developmental needs of children who are not I got a little success there—but there’s a lot more to do.” yet school-aged. It is a project that, if it leads to universal Chief among the victories on this score was defeating the preschool statewide, could ultimately cost up to $1 billion moratorium on new charter schools—a rare instance of the a year. In December, Romney reacted to the report of an Legislature falling short in an attempt to override his veto. advisory committee charged with recommending the pa- “One of the things I love about charter schools is, if they’re rameters of the new department by stating that he had not working, we revoke their charter, so we can, over time, “serious reservations”about the plan. In particular, he stated, get better and better charter schools,” said Romney. “Kids “I am concerned that understandable efforts to increase the standards and quality of early education and child care programs will increase the ON WORKING WITH THE LEGISLATURE: ‘Where cost of child care beyond the economic there are not powerful special interests capacity of working parents, especially low income working parents.” aligned with the Democratic Party…we’re When I asked Romney about early-child- able to work on a very collaborative basis.’ hood education, however, his “reservations” seemed to go beyond the price of daycare. have more choice, particularly in our urban settings.” ON EARLY EDUCATION: ‘I would Intriguingly, Romney said his best ally on management reform going forward could be the Supreme Judicial Court, like to see the data…before we in its much-anticipated Hancock ruling. (See Conversation, start spending that money.’ page 84, and Symposium, CW, Fall ’04.) “Adopting these measures is something which I believe will happen this year because the Supreme Judicial Court is watching this issue For him, the case for early-childhood education had yet to with great interest.” be made. What made him think so? After all, the trial judge’s rec- “You know, I began my career in the consulting indus- ommendations in the case suggested more money, possibly try and in that industry what I learned was you didn’t come in vast amounts, as well as more attention to the “capacity” to a problem with a preconceived answer.You instead gath- of schools and districts to spend that money effectively. ered information, analyzed the information, and then said, “I think the initial observations [of Judge Botsford] will okay, what have we learned from this that would tell us be reviewed with great seriousness by the Supreme Judicial how to make things better? We did the same thing in edu- Court,”said Romney.“[The justices’] comments and ques- cation.We spend billions of dollars in Massachusetts on ed- tions in court suggested that money is not the answer. I ucation.We have 351 different school districts.We can learn believe they’re right. Look at school districts that have from them. We have charter schools. We can learn from dramatically increased spending in the school and it does- them. We can learn from the think tanks that have been n’t change the performance of the students. You have to studying education to say: Which changes to the education manage that money differently as opposed to just spending system will actually produce results for our kids? What more money. Right now in America 53 percent of the funds things will make them better? Early education is often we’re spending in our schools is being spent on teaching; 47 suggested as one of the things that will help our kids. percent is overhead. That is nuts.” “Well,”he continued, “let’s look. Before we spend a bil- Warming to this theme, Romney continued: “We’re lion dollars, let’s look at the data of kids who are currently spending billions of dollars more today than we were when in Head Start and see. Do we have a higher graduation rate education reform passed in 1993 and we have not fixed the with kids in Head Start than with kids in the same socio- schools in the inner city. It’s time to adopt some of the economic group and neighborhood that did not get Head approaches recommended by people like those that serve on Start? If so, let’s invest in more Head Start. If not, let’s not. the Grogan Commission…and those experiences of our I don’t bring to this a doctrinaire, prepackaged series of an- charter schools.” swers to how to make our schools better. Instead, I look for

78 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 recommendations based on analysis of data. With regards to early education, I would like to see the data to know where we should invest and how much we should invest before we start spending that money.” I asked him if his need for data was based in questions about early-childhood education itself, or how to do it.“I’d like to see more full analysis, [but] the preliminary information shows that kids that get early education get a real head start for the first two or three years of elementary school,” Romney said. “But by the time kids start dropping out of school—sixth, seventh, eighth grades—early education hasn’t impacted their dropout rate nor their success on the MCAS…. If that’s the case, I’d rather be spending money in after-school programs for sixth-, seventh-, and eighth- graders, spending money on more support in the classroom for teachers, computers in the classroom.” Once again, Romney saw the principal obstacle to open- minded consideration of the merits—or lack thereof— of preschool education as “special interest groups,” one in particular. “Let’s put aside the special interest groups,”said Romney. “Let’s put aside the teachers’ union and all the others that have a financial stake in the outcome and instead look at the data and determine what’s the right thing to do for our kids.” This space generously donated by Stephen & Barbara Roop.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION When I asked what accomplishment to date he’s most proud of, Romney distinguished between short-term and long- term. Short-term, he said, closing the budget gap—estimated at $3 billion when he took office—without raising broad-based taxes was his most important achievement, one that he shared with the Legislature. (“I don’t do these things alone. We do them together.”) The measure he thought would have most long-term payoff for the Commonwealth, on the other hand, was the housing and development package, known in legalistic shorthand as Chapter 40-R, passed last summer as part of the budget. Based in part on the recommendations of the Common- wealth Housing Task Force, an ad hoc group of academic experts, business leaders, and housing advocates (“Can housing plans pass inspection?” CW, Winter ’04), the new development rules encourage cities and towns to create “zoning overlay districts”that will allow dense development near municipal centers and transit stops in exchange for certain state incentives. “It is the quintessential smart-growth strategy,” said Romney, with enthusiasm. “We are applying it. We are adopting it. And I think it’s going to be a huge benefit for generations.” Romney is one of many state (and business) leaders who have come to see the rising cost of housing not only as a problem for the poor but as a threat to our economic com-

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 79 petitiveness. I pointed out that while housing permits for tion costs of children living in the new densely built hous- multifamily housing were up, so were home prices—14 ing—were left on the cutting room floor. percent in the first half of 2004, the highest rate in four years. “Well, we did get one financial incentive and that’s a I asked him how his housing legislation was going to alle- bounty on each housing permit,”Romney replied.“I wanted viate that cost pressure and provide more opportunities a $6,000 bounty. It’s only a $3,000 bounty, but that’s the for affordable, middle-class family housing, and if there is nature of the legislative process.”In addition, municipalities more to be done. get upfront money at the time of rezoning—$350,000 “There will always be more to be done, but we’re mak- for 400 units of housing planned for in the development ing huge strides forward,”said Romney.“As the additional housing that is currently under construction comes into ON HOUSING COSTS: ‘I know of the market, it will continue to bring down prices and open up homes and multifamily homes to our citizens at rea- no way to bring down price sonable prices. I know of no way to bring down price other than by increasing supply. That is the only way you can do other than by increasing supply.’ it on a permanent basis. We have constricted supply in the Commonwealth for decades, and that’s what’s been driving district, $600,000 if more than 500 units—but these are all the price of our housing out of sight.” one-time infusions of cash. I asked what made him believe that cities and towns But Romney also reminded me of the “stick”he had put were going to sign on to his “smart growth”plan—the law, in the hands of Doug Foy, his development czar, to reason after all, made these new development districts simply a with local leaders who might not jump to the bait. “We, as local option, not a state mandate. And of the incentives an administration, dispense a lot of money from the state proposed by the Commonwealth Housing Task Force, those to municipalities and localities on a discretionary basis,”said incorporated into the new law were the short-dollar ones, Romney.“We have communicated to cities and towns that while the big-ticket items—such as subsidizing the educa- we are going to send that money out [largely] based on

80 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 whether they have adopted multifamily housing zones in their cities and towns. Basically, what we’re saying is, if you’re playing in a smart-growth world, then we’re going to be playing with the dollars that you need to help beautify your community and to do the things you want to do. But if you’re holding up multifamily housing, if you’re not allowing your citizens to enjoy a future in your city or town, then we’re going to take our money elsewhere.” Whether it’s carrots or sticks doing the trick, are Massa- chusetts communities getting on board Romney’s town- square development bandwagon? He says they are. “We’ve had a number of cities—Secretary Foy can tell you the number but it’s more than a handful, it’s more than your fingers and toes combined. We’ve had a number of cities say we’re on board. We’re signed up.” Well, maybe not “signed up”exactly.After checking with Foy’s office, it turns out that, with Chapter 40-R going into effect in July, regulations were still being drafted for public comment; they would likely be promulgated by the end of February. So far, about a dozen communities have apparently expressed preliminary interest in the overlay district idea, but officials are hoping to see much more activity once regulations come out, with possible action at town meetings as soon as this spring.

ELECTION RETURNS—AND FALLOUT I couldn’t leave without asking the governor about the election season just past. In an interview during the 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Romney had told Common- Wealth’s editors that he intended to revive two-party politics in the Bay State. Romney certainly tried to do so last fall, recruiting and aiding a bumper crop (by Massachusetts standards, anyway) of Republican candidates for legislative office. But not a single Democratic incumbent was knocked out by a Republican challenger, and not a single open seat Year Up’s intensive one-year went to the GOP.In the end, the party became even a smaller program provides urban young minority in the Legislature, losing two seats in the House and adults in Greater Boston with one in the Senate. I suggested to Romney that things could hardly have technical skills, professional skills, turned out worse had he and his handpicked state party paid internships and college credit. chairman, Darrell Crate, done nothing at all. He jumped all We prepare them for successful over that remark. careers and higher education. “As a matter of fact, things could have turned out much worse,” said Romney. “We lost not one incumbent seat. We value and depend upon There was a very aggressive effort by the opposition party MassINC’s excellent work. to knock off a number of our candidates, including Scott Brown,”the Wrentham Republican who had won, in a special election last year, the state Senate seat vacated by Cheryl Year Up Jacques. Romney also cited “a very aggressive effort by the 93 Summer Street AFL-CIO” to “knock off” Sen. Richard Tisei of Wakefield. Boston, MA 02110 “So things could have been a lot worse.” www.yearup.org But Romney readily conceded that things “could also 617-542-1533 have been a lot better. I was disappointed we didn’t pick up This space generously donated by Gerald & Kate Chertavian.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 81 seats…. It is very difficult for the minority party to be able to pick up seats, particularly when people are generally happy with incumbents in a Democratic state and with John Kerry’s name at the top of the ticket.” Isn’t it possible, I asked, that all you accomplished was offending Democratic members of the Legislature you’re going to have to deal with over the next two years? “You know, I imagine there are some who feel that an elected position is an entitlement, but they have to be in the distinct minority,” said Romney. “The great majority of my Democratic colleagues understand that elections are a good thing, that it builds strength in both parties. It strengthens the muscle of their own campaign teams. From Higher Learning. Richer Experience. the leadership that I meet with regularly there is a full understanding of how the democratic process works and Northeastern University integrates challenging liberal no hard feelings. I can assure you I had no hard feelings arts and professional studies with a cooperative when I took office, even though the leadership and basically education program ranked number one in the nation the entire Democratic organization was working very by U.S. News & World Report. Academic excellence, hard for my opponent. That’s how it works in a democracy. engagement with real-world issues, and one of the most And it should work that way. I have no concerns about that attractive urban campuses in the country add up to an and I recognize that about a year from now my Democratic educational experience for the twenty-first century. ON RECRUITING REPUBLICAN 10.02.19 Online at www.northeastern.edu CHALLENGERS: ‘My Democratic colleagues understand that elections are a good thing.’

colleagues will be beginning to work very hard for my opponent. And that’s fine. When the election is over, the campaign ends, we go to work to do what the citizens elected us to do.” Does he feel any need to mend fences with Democratic lawmakers? “Well,it was important for me, in the campaign, that any individual or any campaign I was associated with never made a personal attack on a Democratic colleague in the State House. Instead, the campaigns focused on voting records and issues, not personalities and personal integrity and matters of that nature. I’ve also expressed respect for the individual members of the opposition party…so I don’t feel like any bridges are burned because we have sound personal relationships and respect our differences.” At the same time, Romney allowed that he was making new efforts to reach out to lawmakers. Not long after our meeting, The Boston Globe reported on Romney’s courtship of legislative leaders, with the governor taking Senate President Robert Travaglini and newly elected House Speaker Salvatore DiMasi to dinner in the North End and hosting DiMasi and his wife at Romney’s Belmont home. But in our conversation, the governor indicated that his charm offensive would move ahead on a wider front. “In the first two years I worked pretty extensively with

82 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 leadership and with the chairpersons of the respective com- MassINC’s mittees,” said Romney. “I’m broadening that this year and reaching further into the Legislature with other members. CITIZENS’CIRCLE My legislative affairs director, Peter Flaherty, is making sure that we’re seeing more people and touching more bases, particularly in those arenas where I think the agenda is most needful, namely health care, education, [auto] insurance,” Collaboration. in addition to the budget. Romney said he had no doubt that, whatever wounds Investment. were still raw from Election Day, things were looking up in the State House. “I expect that we’ll get a lot done and I Impact. really believe, contrary to what some people feel, that once the elections are over, Democrats and Republicans work together pretty well in this building. Just like the first two MassINC’s Citizens’ Circle brings together years. To be honest, I think what we accomplished in the first exceptional people who care about two years that I’ve been here was an extraordinary record. improving the quality of life in Massachusetts. I know Speaker Finneran said the same thing as he was going out. He was very complimentary of what the Legis- These valued supporters are leaders in lature achieved. I think President Travalgini had the same a wide range of fields, including business, comments to make. I think state government did a pretty philanthropy, labor and government. good job.” He paused. “And, by the way, that may be one of the For more information on joining the reasons it was so hard to elect new people to replace Citizens’ Circle—please call 617.742.6800 x101. incumbents.”

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 83

conversation In the shadow of Hancock As the Supreme Judicial Court prepares to rule, chronicler of school-finance lawsuits Peter Schrag says adequacy in education is hard to define

AS OF THIS WRITING, THE STATE’S SUPREME JUDICIAL COURT HAS YET TO HAND DOWN A RULING in Hancock v. Driscoll, the latest round of educational-equity litigation that has been on the high court’s docket for more than 30 years. Not that nothing has come of the long-pending case. In McDuffy v. Secretary of Education, the lawsuit’s previous incarnation, the SJC declared the state’s schools unconstitutional in sweeping fashion, ordering the Commonwealth to reset its educational expectations and its funding mechanism. But the impact of that bold proclamation was blunted by the Education Reform Act of 1993, a piece of legislation signed into law within days of the court’s ruling that promised to do just what the SJC demanded: set academic standards consistent with the court’s, hold schools accountable to those standards statewide, and provide funding that would enable even the most impoverished communities to educate their students to ambitious levels. A dozen years later, the case is back before the state’s high- how to spend it, for years to come. est court and fingers are crossed—educators’and advocates’ It’s a riddle Peter Schrag has seen courts and lawmakers in hope, policy-makers’and budget writers’in fear—in an- wrestle with before—many times, in many places around ticipation of a ruling that could send education reform and the country, and in many forms. Schrag is not a lawyer but school finance in Massachusetts back to the drawing board. a journalist, though his interest in schools over more than Last issue, CommonWealth collected views from a range of 40 years has drawn him to courtrooms and legal docu- interests about the Hancock case, what it means, and what ments as often as to classrooms. The longtime editorial-page should be done about schools that are still not up to snuff. editor of the Sacramento Bee may be best known for his 1998 (See Symposium, CW, Fall ’04.) Those essays took as their book Paradise Lost: California’s Experience, America’s Future, touchstone the seven-month Hancock trial and Superior which was selected as a New York Times Notable Book.But Court Judge Margot Botsford’s recommendations to the SJC it is his 2003 tome, Final Test: The Battle for Adequacy in based on the evidence. America’s Schools, that is pertinent here—pertinent enough But now the tea leaves, hard enough to read at that time, that Harvard’s Graduate School of Education brought him have been further stirred by the oral arguments that took east for a series of forums and classes in November. place before the SJC October 4. In their Socratic questioning CommonWealth caught up with Schrag in Cambridge and of both sides, the justices seemed as skittish about imposing asked him to put Massachusetts’s still-pending educational their judicial will in funding—traditionally a legislative “adequacy” case into national perspective. What follows is prerogative—as Judge Botsford was bold, and as interested an edited transcript of our conversation. in the matter of how the state would ensure that money is —ROBERT KEOUGH well spent as in how much money it should dole out. And no matter how the court rules—and it may indeed have ruled CommonWealth: For starters, as a legal concept, how did the by the time this article appears—the state will be grappling notion of adequacy supersede equity? And how is that change, with questions of how much to spend on education, and both legally and politically,driving the push for better schools, photographs by frank curran

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 85 especially for those serving the disadvantaged? CommonWealth: As I read through your account of the way these struggles have played out, both in the courts and leg- Schrag: Well, adequacy sort of evolved from equity. But in a islatures around the country in places like Kentucky, Ohio, lot of these cases around the country, equity and California, New Jersey, and New York, I started to count adequacy, to some extent, have gotten sort of mooshed to- Massachusetts as pretty lucky. As opposed to what was, in gether. The idea of equity was that you provided not neces- most states,a succession of court orders followed by response, sarily equal amounts of money but levels of resources that counter-response, acceptance, resistance, etc., from the po- were commensurate with the needs of the students, or were litical class, in Massachusetts in 1993 we had almost simul- at least proportional to the needs of the students.Adequacy taneously the state Supreme Judicial Court ruling that asks a wholly different question. It’s a question that we never school finance in the state was unconstitutional… asked until 20 years ago in this country. Essentially, we always provided resources through the usual political Schrag: In the McDuffy case.

‘I think what you’ve got in Massachusetts is actually a pretty good situation.’

sausage machine, which involves wheeling and dealing to CommonWealth: Right. In McDuffy, the court ruled that the divvy up the pot, along with money for roads and money education being provided for children was inadequate from for cops, and whatever. Suddenly, we started to ask what is the standpoint of the state constitution and that the means necessary to educate a child. It’s a question we’ve been ask- of financing it was unconstitutional, and ordered the state ing, both in the courts and in the political sphere, now for to do something about it. The state did do something, as a going on 20 years, but in not a very linear fashion—more matter of fact, having been on a political track parallel to this of a circular fashion, actually. All of this was driven by the legal case, and came up with the Education Reform Act of standards movement. Essentially, once the states started to 1993, which essentially did all those things that the Supreme set standards, started to set accountability systems, testing Judicial Court wanted. It defined adequacy financially, by systems with high-stakes tests—“If you, Johnny, don’t pass means of a foundation budget, made a commitment over the test, you don’t get a diploma; if you don’t read adequately seven years to raise spending in all districts to at least foun- in the third grade, you don’t get promoted”—then, of dation budget level, and began the process of setting state course, the commensurate question became: What are you, standards and establishing accountability mechanisms, the state, going to do to provide the resources to enable the through the MCAS test, to hold students and especially schools and the individual students to succeed? That’s been schools accountable for providing that level of constitu- a very powerful engine…[and] the state courts have picked tionally adequate education. That led to 10 years of steadily up on this all over the place. If I were Gershwin, I’d write a increased funding for schools and, though not without con- song called “Adequacy Is Sweeping the Country.” But it troversy, 10 years of standards-based education reform. doesn’t scan very well. [Adequacy] is not a very nice word. How unusual was this, what seems now to be a fairly orderly process, compared with what some of these other states CommonWealth: It wouldn’t quite set your toes a-tapping. have gone through?

Schrag: No, not exactly. It’s a terrible word. Schrag: It is somewhat unusual. The most comparable

86 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 situation I know of was in Kentucky, in 1989, where the CommonWealth: So, we’re getting back to that equity/ade- Supreme Court essentially declared the whole state educa- quacy confusion. The fact that richer districts are exercising tion system unconstitutional—everything, every part and their option to spend more than foundation and poorer parcel. [The ruling] included standards, it included fund- districts are unable to do the same because they don’t have ing, it included the whole deal. The court said to the Legis- the means has been taken by the trial judge as prima-facie lature: Start over, create a new system—which the Legisla- evidence that the foundation level must not be adequate in ture at that moment happened to be ready to do. The stars less wealthy districts.We’re still waiting for a ruling on this, were all aligned. The business community had been very but based on the kinds of arguments raised in the Hancock restive about the low reputation that Kentucky schools had. trial and in the trial judge’s recommendations to the SJC, are The executives obviously wanted schools that were re- we in Massachusetts hitting a new level in the adequacy spectable not only for their kids but in terms of [attracting] argument? Or are we just catching up to where some of these employees and so on. And the teachers’ union was ready other states have been, in terms of playing out multiple to make the deal on standards in return for more money. rounds on the adequacy question? So Kentucky is the nearest example I know of. The other example is Maryland, where there was never a final court Schrag: It’s a good question. I’m not sure I really know the order—there were some trial court orders—and the Legis- answer to it. I think that what you’ve got in Massachusetts lature passed legislation that addressed a whole lot of prob- is actually a pretty good situation. Even though the gaps [in lems. [In contrast,] most other states have been engaged in educational achievement] exist, the interesting thing is that what you would politely call dialogue between the court and the poorer districts in Massachusetts, on average, spend the Legislature. In some cases, as in Ohio, the Legislature more money than the high-wealth districts. So the classic basically just ignored the court. The court issued four problem, which is that low-wealth districts were funding the orders saying,“You’ve got to redo the system; it’s unconsti- schools at much lower levels because they couldn’t afford to tutional.”The Legislature put a lot of new money in, but the spend more, is not true here. Here it’s quite the reverse, basic reform, which had to do with reducing the local tax because of the foundation budget system, and so on. In fact, burden and increasing the state share [of school funding], in Massachusetts, the reverse gap [where spending in low- never happened. Finally, the court just gave up. But in a lot wealth districts, thanks to state subsidies, is higher than in of states, now we’re going into the second round. We have wealthier districts, which largely fund schools on their own] a new set of lawsuits in Kentucky. We have a new suit in is larger than it is in any state in the union. Obviously, in these Texas, and a new one in Wyoming, where things seemed to districts, the plaintiff districts of Hancock, for various rea- be settled 10 or 15 years ago, and now the same plaintiffs or sons there’s still a problem there. But Massachusetts is kind similar plaintiffs are coming back and saying,“You didn’t live of exemplary in how well it’s done, both in terms of its up to your commitment.” So we’re going to have a second funding structure and in terms of its achievement levels. round, but still on the same basis. It’s not as if we got a new Massachusetts’s achievement scores are good, essentially, set of principles. compared with the rest of the country. Your MCAS record has been good. So sitting in the depths of California, I’m CommonWealth: Exactly.We find ourselves in our next phase saying: What are you complaining about? here in Massachusetts with the Hancock case, which is the next iteration of McDuffy. Essentially the same matter has CommonWealth: Putting things in national perspective, in been reopened, and a trial judge has now ruled that addi- other words, we should be pretty happy. tional funding and 10 years of standards-based reform notwithstanding, the education provided in poorer dis- Schrag: We [in California] would trade with you any day. tricts is still not adequate on the constitutional level and that We’re now maybe 30th in the country in what we spend per a lack of resources is still largely to blame. The evidence pupil. In California, because for various reasons local dis- basically is that students in these districts are not achieving tricts have no incentive to tax themselves or have no ability at levels that are up to the state-established standards and to tax themselves additionally for schools, the average level that schools in poorer districts are spending at foundation of school spending compared with other states has gone levels or just above, while richer districts are spending down. Or, let’s put it this way, other states have gone up and well above their foundation levels—which is lower to we’ve stayed put. And you don’t have that problem. begin with, but they have the freedom to exceed it by as much as they want. CommonWealth: Well, in Massachusetts we have a similar mechanism in terms of limiting local property taxes, Schrag: There’s no cap [on allowable spending] here, the way Proposition 2½, but it seems to be not nearly as rigid as there is in some states. Proposition 13 in California.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 87 Schrag: That’s right. We can’t raise our local property tax teacher, how do you attract a good teacher, how do you keep no-how. We’re just stuck. good teachers in the schools that you want them in? Those are the questions that have not been addressed yet at the pol- CommonWealth: A couple of interesting new issues arose in icy level. I don’t think they’re very esoteric questions.You can the Hancock initial ruling from Judge Margot Botsford that create incentives. Politically it’s not so easy, but policy-wise, I’m anxious to have you put in national perspective. One is it’s easy. Those questions haven’t been confronted partly the difficulty of calculating adequacy. It seems to me that because the policy-makers are afraid of the political reper- adequacy in school funding has sort of become the equiv- cussions. But it seems to me that [the key], particularly in alent of pornography. You know it when you see it, but the low-performing schools, is, you have to find a way to get defining it beyond that is very difficult. There seems to be and keep good teachers. I’m not even sure you have to de- a certain level below which reasonable people would agree fine what is a good teacher. It seems to me what you have to there’s no way you can expect schools to provide an adequate education and, at the ‘What you have other end,there seems to be a level at which to do is give almost everyone agrees that, with this much money,if you’re [schools] the not providing a good education there’s got ability to have to be something wrong with the choices among school. But that leaves a huge area in be- teachers.’ tween, where there’s disagreement over whether inadequacy in educational quality is a matter of resources or not. In the do is give the school the ability to have choices among teach- Hancock case, the judge listened to testimony based on the ers. That means the physical situation ought to be attractive. leading methodologies in calculating adequacy—the pro- There ought to be enough support help in those schools— fessional judgment method and the successful schools counselors, reading specialists, those kind of folks—so that method—and basically threw them both out, saying she teachers don’t have to be everything to every kid. If you talk couldn’t make any sense out of either of them. They seem to teachers and say,“ What is it that you want?,”[they will an- to be either pie-in-the-sky or a laundry list of wishes from swer], “Well, we want support. We want small classes. Safe local educators without any real evidence that whatever it parking spaces.”[Parking] is a ridiculous kind of peripheral is they totaled up is both necessary and sufficient for a qual- thing, but it seems to be an important thing. ity education. This would seem to be a fairly fundamental problem, not only in adequacy litigation but also in the prac- CommonWealth: The other question that arose in this round tice of what it means for a state to live up to its promise to of Hancock is the notion of capacity. If one part of the equa- its children. tion is having adequate resources, the other part is being able to use those resources in ways that will produce better Schrag: Absolutely.And you’re right,it is a little bit like pornog- learning outcomes for students. If there’s one item that raphy. Below a certain level you know it’s too little. Above a everyone can agree on as being essential to educational certain level you should be able to do [the job]. Part of the success, it’s good teachers. problem is we haven’t fine-tuned it enough yet. I think everybody can sort of agree on what’s a suitable facility, Schrag: Absolutely. within certain limits. I don’t think that’s hard. I don’t think materials are hard. Kids should have textbooks. Maybe they CommonWealth: But how do you define a good teacher, other should have two sets of textbooks so they keep one at home than as a teacher whose students are learning? and use one in school.We can argue about that, but that’s not a big thing. The crucial thing is teachers. What is a good Schrag: If you have a decent principal and the principal has

88 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 choices [between candidates for teaching positions], I think can have our ideology, you can have your patronage, or vice more times than not the principal will make the right choice. versa. And that is an unholy brew. Personally, I know noth- If he doesn’t have choices—if he has to start the first six ing about the Cambridge schools, but there are other places weeks of school with a substitute because the system is so tight where that holds as well. In New Jersey, the so-called Abbott that it doesn’t know where the kids are going to be, and he districts [named after the Abbott v. Burke education-finance can’t hire teachers until the classes are set—then he’s going case], which are the poor districts—Camden and Newark, to have to hire people that are less than perfect. He’s going to Jersey City, Trenton, all the urban districts—are spending have to pick the first warm body he gets. If you look at good a lot more money for kids than the state average and as much suburban schools, they have all the choices in the world. as most of the suburban districts. So far the outcomes have People want to go there to teach because the conditions are not been great. Now that may change, because it’s early, but decent. The pay is reasonably good and, of course, the the outcomes have not been great. So just putting in money system has to be clean. It can’t be patronage-ridden. Maybe is obviously not enough. I saw that Bob Costrell had a piece we ought to not only look at successful schools; maybe we in your most recent issue. [See Symposium, CW, Fall ’04.] ought to look at the conditions that create failing schools He made that point again last night, with that wonderful and see what’s to be avoided. We were talking last night [at scatter diagram that you ran. There are poor districts that are a Harvard Graduate School of Education forum] about the doing reasonably well and there are poor districts that are Cambridge public schools spending huge amounts of doing horribly. So simple cash is not the answer. It comes money and apparently getting very little for it. My question back to your question: What is adequate? was: What’s the problem? The short answer was the combination of patronage and ideology. CommonWealth: I wonder about this question of choices. If you are a principal or a superintendent, your choices are lim- CommonWealth: An unholy brew if I ever heard of one. ited if you don’t have the competition in terms of applicants for teaching jobs, or if you don’t have the ability to hire in Schrag: Right. That’s sort of the implicit compromise. If we a timely fashion, so by the time you get around to hiring

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 89 there’s nobody left. But there’s also the question of the perience of the teachers, because that means the salaries are installed base of teachers in your school or district. In the higher, depending on the age of the building, and all of that. medium-to-large urban districts that seem to be failing their students, you’ve got teaching workforces in place over CommonWealth: And if the senior, experienced teachers can which principals and superintendents have no choice get out of schools like that, then those schools are going to whatsoever, and very limited control. end up with the least experienced and lowest paid teachers.

Schrag: That’s absolutely right, and you have to [deal with] Schrag: Right. Of course, there’s a problem with teachers’ that over time. A new principal can’t come in tomorrow contracts and with teachers’ unions and all of that, though morning and run all the old teachers off and hire a whole in the end I don’t think that simply getting rid of seniority new group. But he or she can certainly do that over a period rights is going to solve that problem. It seems to me, no mat- of time, if she has the choices. That was part of the idea of ter what you do, you’re not going to be able to assign a reconstitution of schools. If a school is really failing, you teacher to a school who doesn’t want to go there. They don’t clean the whole place out and start with a new crew. But you want to teach there, and if they [are forced to teach there], can do that only in rare instances and even then, it may not they’re not going to do very well because they’re not moti- work.It seems to me you’ve got to make schools attractive for vated. So how do you create the incentives for people to want people to work in. I’m sure you’ve been in enough schools— to go to those schools? And how do you create the incentives I’ve been in lots of them—where I’d say, “I couldn’t stand to do well in those schools? Then you get into value-added being in here for more than five minutes.”And other places kinds of measurements and incentives. The unions go crazy are very pleasant and wonderful and positive and exciting. when you raise those issues. But in the long run, that may There’s enormous difference [in conditions] not only be- be what you need to do. Do the children in the class that I’m tween districts; it’s also within districts. There are often teaching progress a year [in skills and knowledge] during the huge gaps in pay and in resources between School A and year that I’m teaching them? And if they progress less than School B within the same district—depending on the ex- a year, why is that? I don’t mean that you’re going to do ter-

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90 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 rible things to people [whose students are not progressing But you’re absolutely right. How do you deal with those at the expected rate], but at least you want to measure that institutional issues? On the one side, you have people who and be able to remediate the situation in some way. “Well, simply say that vouchers will get rid of all those terrible sys- Ms. Jones, your kids only advanced six months while stu- tems. I don’t think they will. On the other hand, you have dents with Ms. Smith next door did 1.3 years, so let’s figure the rigid defenders [of schools as they are now]. I think out what’s going wrong.” that’s one of the questions that Democrats, in particular— and I am mostly a Democrat—have to answer for. They say CommonWealth: Exactly. I wonder whether the way these they’re so concerned about kids, but when it comes to the lawsuits are playing out have made it almost impossible to crunch, they’ll go with the unions almost every time. entertain that kind of discussion. I was struck, in your account of the New York case [in Final Test], by the structural CommonWealth: At this point, we’re waiting for a ruling from impediment to raising school management issues that was the SJC in the Hancock case. The only inklings anyone has created by the alliance between the Campaign for Fiscal gotten about what the court is going to do came from the oral Equity, which filed the suit, and the New York City public arguments. In contrast to Judge Botsford’s recommendation schools. Because they were in cahoots, essentially, in pros- —which seemed to point toward a very expansive remedy ecuting this case against the state of New York, the last thing that would involve both enormous new spending but also they were going to bring up was whether it was misman- enormous new initiative and responsibility on the part of agement, patronage, and corruption in the public-schools the state—the justices seemed concerned about not issuing bureaucracy that failed the children. Certainly people in the a ruling they could not enforce. More than one justice raised Romney administration here in Massachusetts, the defen- the issue of a “quagmire,” often invoking the case in New dants in the Hancock case, bristle at the role of the teachers’ Jersey as the kind of situation they want to avoid. In a sense, unions in bankrolling the case. And they take it as no sur- the SJC got off easy in 1993, when they could make a very prise that when Judge Botsford puts out her recommenda- sweeping ruling regarding funding and the adequacy issue, tions about what the Supreme Judicial Court should con- but then not tell the state anything other than “fix it.” And sider as remedies for failing school districts, it is a litany of the legislators, they went out and did fix it. proposals that the defenders of traditional public schools think would be good—early childhood education, smaller Schrag: That’s right, the Legislature was willing and ready to classes, higher pay for teachers, these sorts of things. You do it. don’t get suggestions like stronger management reforms or variable pay, or more charter schools, or vouchers. CommonWealth: But now what do they do? The justices acknowledged that the state has done a great deal, and in fact Schrag: That’s not part of the conversation. I assume that the Judge Botsford was more than willing to acknowledge the administration or the defendants in Hancock did raise those tremendous progress we’ve made in correcting disparities issues. I assume that a guy like Mitt Romney would want to in funding, in setting standards and holding institutions raise those issues, and he should raise them.And you’re right accountable.Yet it’s not enough.So what can the SJC say now? about New York. They were in cahoots. Mike Rebell [of the Campaign for Fiscal Equity] is more and more acknowl- Schrag: That’s a good question. Their diffidence is certainly edging that. He never denied it, but it was always sort of sotto justified. This court is probably a little bit gun-shy anyway, voce. They were in cahoots—they still are in cahoots— after the gay marriage thing. But the other thing is, there’s and those are issues that have to be dealt with. The politics a proportionality issue here. [If the SJC had reason to say], of that are certainly difficult. In New York, they certainly “This is horrible, the state’s education system is going down made an effort. They got rid of those community [school] the tubes, kids aren’t learning, the gaps are enormous be- boards. Some of them were just patronage machines that tween the rich schools and the poor schools, we’ve got to do were totally corrupt. The two school bureaucracies I really something drastic”—that would be one thing. But that’s not knew well were New York City and Boston, because I did a the case. The question is, how much of a political ruckus do book on Boston’s schools a long, long time ago [Village we create in order to solve…a relatively small problem? I’m School Downtown, 1967]. The kind of insularity of those sure there are going to be lots of people—Norma Shapiro systems was just horrendous. It was about jobs, it was about [president of Council for Fair School Finance] and other patronage. It was about taking care of your friends and people—who will say,“You just don’t understand what the relatives. It wasn’t about kids. The kids were just sort of the problem is,” and maybe I don’t. But looking at it from the loss leaders. [In New York they have since] created a more national perspective, and unavoidably from the California centralized command-and-control structure that may be perspective, I say: There is a problem, but I’ll trade your just as bad. I don’t know, I haven’t followed New York lately. problem for my problem any day.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 91 92 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 considered opinion

Urban village Even in a ‘model’ community, participation is hard to sustain by mario luis small

or poor rural Latin Americans with little educa- ate through iron gates and as walls crumbled and rotted. tion and almost no marketable skills, immigra- Outsiders rarely ventured into the South End; even the tion to an American city with a dwindling man- elevated train that rumbled through the neighborhood ufacturing sector is rarely a recipe for success. stopped only at its two borders. Even less is to be expected when the immigrants In 1965, the South End, including the 20-acre Parcel 19, speak no English, when the city has a reputation was designated an urban renewal area by the Boston Re- for antagonism against outsiders, and when the development Authority. For Parcel 19 residents, this des- Fneighborhood to which they are migrating is known as a ignation meant displacement and relocation to other parts Skid Row. Yet success came to 2,000 Puerto Ricans living of the city, breaking up a tight ethnic community. That’s in the late 1960s in Parcel 19 of Boston’s South End. just what had happened eight years before, in Boston’s Their success was the creation, against all odds, of a self- West End, as chronicled in Herbert Gans’s classic book, managed, aesthetically pleasing, architecturally sophisti- Urban Villagers. Just as the West End was transformed into cated housing complex in the heart of what is now one of Charles River Park, the South End would be demolished the most exclusive sections of Boston. They created a neigh- and rebuilt with luxury apartments or condominiums. borhood and, along with it, the security of a guaranteed In response, the Puerto Rican residents of Parcel 19 home for the rest of their lives and the comfort of a began to assemble a resistance movement with the support community of compatriots in a foreign land. The neigh- of activists, priests and seminarians, architects, and a few borhood, Villa Victoria, is now a small treasure among professionals, both Latino and of other ethnic back- New England Puerto Ricans, a testament to the power of grounds. Funds from local ministries and ecumenical grass-roots mobilization. organizations were funneled to the group, now called the Villa Victoria is a community development success Emergency Tenants’ Council, which had as its goal not only story, one worth telling for that reason alone. But while it’s resisting displacement but also redeveloping the parcel important to know how to create such a community, it is on its own terms. also important to know how—and whether—that kind of community can be sustained over time. The experience Boston’s Villa Victoria was of 30 years of Villa Victoria suggests that, even under the best of conditions, community participation is a success against all odds. unlikely to maintain itself on its own. It requires a stable and functional community organization, maintenance of It took several years for this resistance movement to the landscape, and the continuous nurturing of new succeed. Activists argued with officials, wrote letters, and cohorts of leaders. picketed City Hall until late at night. With the help of young Boston architects, they designed an alternative rede- FROM SLUM TO NEIGHBORHOOD velopment plan that called for low- and middle-income The creation of “the Villa,”as residents call it, is a textbook housing, and for allowing original residents to return to case of grass-roots political activism with greater-than- the neighborhood after the new units were built. They textbook results. The 2,000 people who would one day appealed to local political groups and won the support of live in Villa Victoria were at the time housed in dilapidat- other South End organizations. ed brownstones and townhouses. The South End in gen- Meanwhile, pressure had been mounting on the city to eral, and their portion of land in particular, “Parcel 19,” be more sensitive in its urban renewal efforts. The clear- was then known to many as Skid Row. The residents lived ance of the West End—leaving a shockingly empty 48 acres among rats and junkyards, in structurally unsound cold- where a dense Italian-American community once stood water flats whose Victorian charm had vanished as rust —had raised concerns that the city simply wanted to

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 93 remove all of its poor residents. What had been relatively well. ETC became a management agency to administer the uncomplicated for the city in the 1950s was, by the late complex. A separate agency, Inquilinos Boricuas en Accion 1960s, politically dangerous. In 1969, ETC was granted the (Puerto Rican Tenants in Action, or IBA), was created to right to develop the parcel and manage the resulting hous- foster community participation among residents. Both ing complex. Although ETC still had major fundraising to organizations were (and continue to be) funded from a do, the creation of Villa Victoria had effectively begun. combination of private and public sources. By 1976 the neighborhood had been constructed. What By effort and by design, the Villa came to epitomize what ETC built was a stunning, architectural award-winning researchers have called, among other terms, community complex of three-story houses with pitched roofs and high social capital. There were music festivals, community gar- stoops, community gardens, small parks, and a central plaza dening, tutoring, dances, and other activities. In the early surrounded by a cobblestone-layered paseo. The neigh- 1980s, IBA launched a closed-circuit television station for borhood was designed, both structurally and socially, to the Villa, staffed by one full-time worker and 20 volun- build community. The parks and gathering areas are the teers. With the help of outside funders, young residents most obvious example. But it was also significant that created a tile mural on a large wall facing the plaza; two houses were built with large living room windows so res- more murals were later commissioned. More than 20 idents could easily look out, contributing to the “eyes on volunteer residents, including one from each of eight the street” that sociologists have argued keep crime down “districts” in the Villa, sat on the IBA board of directors, and community interaction up. Several units were built for which elections were held annually. with three or four bedrooms to accommodate large house- IBA’s archives consist of more than 100 boxes filled with holds, keeping families intact and reinforcing the ties that records, meeting minutes, certificates of appreciation, accompany kin-driven immigration. newspaper clippings, newsletters, requests for funds, fliers, It was not just the new physical environment that fos- brochures, and announcements, attesting to the level of tered engagement in Villa Victoria. The institutions of participation between the mid-1970s and the mid-1980s. Villa Victoria contributed to community participation as Just as vivid, if less tangible, are residents’ recollections of

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94 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 countless activities and festivals, workshops on everything of failure—than a process to be understood. If we under- from gardening and cooking to baton twirling, after- stand why identification and participation declined in a school tutoring and summer field trips, and celebrations place as conducive to community as Villa Victoria, perhaps of every major holiday of both the US mainland and we can understand how to reverse that decline, in the Puerto Rico. Villa Victoria became a model community. Villa and elsewhere. The process that has taken place at Villa Victoria is easy LOSING THE MAGIC enough to grasp: As one cohort of residents was replaced If any neighborhood seemed destined to attain lasting suc- by another, the way residents framed the neighborhood cess in fostering community participation, Villa Victoria in their minds changed. Their image of Villa Victoria was the one. It was an ethnically homogeneous commu- shifted from a place where identification and participa- nity with a shared history located in an environment tion seemed meaningful, justified, and worthwhile to a distinguished by a pleasant, community-friendly design. place where such personal investment did not. As the This was not an ethnically heterogeneous community initial cohort of Villa Victoria residents moved out, with internal conflicts brewing beneath the surface, nor grew old, or died, fewer residents framed the neighbor- did it resemble the impersonal high rises of Chicago hood in a way that made being a resident of Villa Victoria housing projects with non-working elevators, few places something worth a personal investment. to gather, and a built-in sense of alienation. Villa Victoria was designed the way it was “supposed” to be. FRAMING THE PICTURE Nevertheless, much of Villa Victoria’s magic did not Sociologists suggest that we never perceive the world “as last, despite concerted efforts. The yearly cultural festival it is”; rather, our perceptions are always filtered through continued. But by the mid-1990s, the IBA board had categories that highlight some attributes of reality and shrunk to 14 members, the district system had been dis- not others. Suppose all individuals required prescription banded, and elections were held sporadically, rather than glasses to see. Without glasses, no one would see anything, yearly. The dance classes, the music instruction, the com- only a blurry image. Suppose everyone wore glasses that munity gardening, and the mural-making ceased. were tinted—blue, yellow, violet, gray, pink, peach. To Channel 6 was no longer in operation, its thousands of each bespectacled person, the world would appear differ- recorded tapes and video equipment collecting dust in a ent. This is what some have called “framing.” Further- storage closet. more, scholars of social movements have found that framing is a pre-condition for action. With a given lens, I New residents saw little might see a light as green and therefore drive my car through it; someone with a different lens might see it as point in participation. red and stop. The framing perspective has implications for commu- Certainly, we must ask why. But a better question is nity participation in low-income neighborhoods like whether it could have lasted—or, what would have been Villa Victoria. Many people suppose that all residents of a necessary for it to last? Some social phenomena are self- low-income neighborhood perceive the neighborhood regenerating: Without outside intervention, they repro- the same way—as ugly, deteriorated, crime-ridden, etc. duce themselves or multiply over time, like a sexually But residents of Villa Victoria framed the neighborhood transmitted disease among a group of peers, or political through at least two very different lenses. Particularly, rumors on the Internet. Others are self-perpetuating but the way Villa Victoria was viewed—or framed—varied not self-regenerating: Without external intervention, or dramatically between cohorts. in the absence of major crises, they neither rise nor fall Though often thought of as a generation, a cohort is a over time, continuing by inertia. But other phenomena cohesive group that moves through life together, in some are degenerative: Without external intervention, they are important way. In the case of Villa Victoria, a cohort is likely to decline over time. simply a collection of residents who, although they are of We tend to treat community engagement as though it different ages, entered Villa Victoria at roughly the same were naturally self-perpetuating or self-regenerating; time or under similar circumstances. The first cohort of neighborhoods are vibrant and participatory, until some- residents of Villa Victoria was composed of many of the thing happens that makes them otherwise. I suggest it is a people who witnessed or participated in the transforma- degenerative phenomenon. I do not believe community tion of a rundown, dilapidated neighborhood into a mod- participation cannot be sustained; only that it is unlikely ern housing complex in the early 1970s. Members of this to sustain itself on its own. In this sense, the decline of cohort tend to frame the neighborhood as a beautiful, engagement in Villa Victoria is less a surprise—or a sign historically important place. As Ernesto (not his real name),

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 95 an elderly resident, said to me in an interview (in Spanish): The talent, technology “They used to call this around here ‘the trap.’ Look— behind [my apartment] there used to be a huge ditch. The and tactics to help you little houses used to lean over the water. When it rained hard, a spurt of water ran along [behind here], and the anticipate and adapt to houses—and their balconies—were almost falling over. And people lived in these places! Holy Mary! The houses were falling apart. And I find myself dumbfounded at changes in the workplace. how beautiful this got afterward!” This resident believes he is fortunate to live here, in a place transformed from slum to community. Like many members of the first cohort of Villa residents, his perception of the neighborhood is filtered through the experience of the deteriorated brownstones that once occupied that section of the South End. For these residents, participation in the community is more than justified. The concerted effort that gave them Villa Victoria is, to them, something that should not be taken in vain. Workforce Consulting Over time this cohort was replaced by a new group of residents with a different set of experiences in the neigh- Staffing and Technology Services borhood. This new cohort—the children of the first cohort plus the new immigrants who inhabited the neighborhood in the late 1980s and 1990s—did not witness the www.veritude.com old Skid Row existence of Parcel 19, or the triumph over it. Moreover, they perceived a radically different neighborhood in its environs. The once-beautiful new townhouses and parks had decayed structurally over their 15 to 20 years of existence. Bushes had grown, paint had peeled, CONSERVATION mold had accumulated, iron fences had bent out of shape, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT and rodents had rediscovered the streets and sidewalks. When compared to the surrounding South End, now one SOCIAL JUSTICE of the city’s upper-middle-class neighborhoods—a quaint assortment of brownstones meticulously restored by a new population of young professionals—the Villa hardly Since 1993, EcoLogic-supported resembled the symbol of hope it was in the 1970s. That projects have preserved and protected stark contrast has dominated perceptions of the neigh- more than 1.6 million acres of borhood among the new cohort. Melissa, a resident in her biodiverse habitats in Latin America— 20s, told me about the time when her job in the Back Bay an area more than twice the size of led her to walk through the South End into the Villa: “I’d Rhode Island. But our work is not done… walk in from Back Bay, and I’d get here and right away I’d know—yep, there’s the graffiti, and the men going ‘Oye, mami,’ and I’d hate it.” Many members of this new cohort see the same neighborhood but, filtered through their own experiences, essentially see a ghetto. Tellingly, residents of this cohort frequently use the word “project” to describe their community. A resident in his 30s who had a nephew with a good pitching arm said to me,“Just wait! This kid’s gonna get us out of the projects!”—a phrase indicative not only Find out how you can help at: www.ecologic.org of his conception of the neighborhood but also of the 25 Mt. Auburn St., Ste. 203, Cambridge, MA 02138 idea that it is something to escape. (I never heard anyone (617) 441-6300 • [email protected] in the first cohort of residents use that term to describe Villa Victoria; in fact, I heard a few residents take offense This space generously donated by The Oak Foundation.

96 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 at it.) Struggle, so critical to the first cohort’s perception to succeed, they will have to find ways to change the way of the neighborhood, plays no role in the new cohort’s. the newer cohorts frame the neighborhood. Otherwise, they For this group, the neighborhood was not something to will face more young residents like Tommy, who, when I invest themselves in, but something to leave. asked him why he did not get involved in neighborhood activities, responded the way many of his cohort members might: “What for?” an anything be done? In Villa Victoria, some ele- The lessons of Villa Victoria, then, depend in part on ments of participation, like the yearly cultural understanding more clearly what to expect from commu- C festival, have persevered. They have done so in nity participation. Created by ethnic struggle, designed to part because of the continued presence of IBA, which pro- promote community, and organized in a participatory vides support for residents interested in community fashion, a place like Villa Victoria has the foundation it participation. However, as IBA’s institutional viability has needs for ongoing growth and involvement. In this sense, suffered, so has its ability to sustain community partici- it is exceptional. But that foundation is, by itself, no guar- pation. Similarly, any efforts to sustain participation over antee that the community will flourish over the long haul. the long run must include the continued maintenance of The place, its institutions, and its continuously refreshing the neighborhood’s landscape. Deteriorated places are cohorts of residents must each be sustained actively in its easier to leave than to get involved in. (Promisingly, a mas- own ways. sive renovation campaign was begun in the Villa two years ago.) Finally, community leaders must actively engage Mario Luis Small is an assistant professor of sociology at Princeton newer cohorts’ perceptions of their neighborhood. Some University and author of Villa Victoria: The Transformation of the Villa’s original Puerto Rican residents have worked of Social Capital in a Boston Barrio. This article is adapted to make their memories of a vital, fighting community last, from a policy brief, “Can Social Capital Last?,” published by the often mobilizing their own children to participate in a Rappaport Institute for Greater Boston at Harvard’s Kennedy community they would hate to see die. For these stalwarts School of Government.

Massachusetts AFL-CIO “Voice of Working Families”

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WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 97 argument

A plan to control costs and insure thousands by mitt romney

he stars and moon may be aligning, making rightly complain of delays and runaround. But mismatched this the year to fix health care. Employers and care is not only inefficient, it is expensive. Providing the employees are finally balking at the high and appropriate care in the appropriate setting saves money and rising cost of health insurance. State budgets enhances quality. Managed care, community clinics, and pre- have been squeezed to near breathlessness by ferred provider networks can improve Medicaid and care ballooning Medicaid costs. And, most fortu- for the poor as they do for those with private insurance. itously, Massachusetts is blessed with world- Bringing modern technology to backroom functions Tleading public health and medical institutions renowned such as billing and patient records will save lives as well as for pioneering innovative solutions. millions of dollars. Reforming malpractice will unburden Even the political will is building, on both sides of the our health system from the wasteful costs of excessively aisle, and not for the first time. Over the past two years, where defensive medicine. other critical issues loomed, we have seen the beneficial Transparency can be another source of savings. Infor- effects of cooperation and collaboration: reforming archaic mation about the cost and quality of alternative providers construction rules, accelerating school construction, re- leads individuals to the right provider for their needs. And, forming transportation, expanding scholarships for students, establishing landmark housing policies, and balanc- We can balance the cost ing lopsided budgets without higher taxes. Health care may be the biggest challenge of all, but legislative leaders have of coverage with savings. indicated that they are as eager to work on it as I am. My proposal for reforming health care, which I call as co-payments rise, everyone who seeks treatment in our Commonwealth Care, is a starting point. For more than a health care system becomes increasingly interested in value: year, members of my administration and I have been Buyers favor providers where equal or superior quality is working on Commonwealth Care. We have worked with available at lower cost. academics, providers, insurers, advocates, and experts. But nowhere is the need to generate savings through But much more work is ahead. New legislative proposals, reform more pressing than in Medicaid, which has grown public and institutional perspectives, and further indus- well beyond anything its authors could have imagined. try input will certainly go into the final legislation. One of every seven people in Massachusetts is on Medi- Commonwealth Care has two primary objectives. First, caid, their care costing taxpayers more than $9 billion to help bring health care costs under control. Second, to annually. With any program of this size, abuse, conflict- insure the uninsured. ing incentives, and fraud inevitably arise. We must attack If our sole objective were to insure the 460,000 Massa- the excess in the current system; it can be an important chusetts residents who are uninsured, the job would be source of finance to care for the truly needy. Detecting and easy: just raise taxes by hundreds of millions of dollars penalizing fraud, limiting asset transfers, redefining house- and hand out insurance cards. But that would place a hold income, imposing appropriate work requirements, greater burden on our hard-working taxpayers, and it and other measures are overdue. As with welfare reform, would do nothing to slow the rapid growth in health care “healthfare” reform will be met with dire predictions. But costs. I propose instead to balance the cost of insuring just like welfare reform, people will move from depen- more citizens with savings from changes in care, technol- dency to greater self-sufficiency. And we will be able to do ogy, and transparency and with new revenue from the a better job helping those who need help most as a result. federal government, from employers who will now be able to afford their employees’ health insurance, and from the REVENUE: Approximately 168,000 people in Massachu- newly insured themselves. setts with household income above $56,500 per year choose not to buy health insurance; 100,000 of these have in- SAVINGS: When individuals seek treatment in a setting comes above $75,000. They say insurance is too expensive that is not properly matched with their needs, they may or too hard to find, and they know they will be able to get

98 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 treatment whether they have insurance or not. We need but less than three times the federal poverty level ($36,000 to get these people insured, for their benefit and for the for a family of two). For these individuals, I propose that benefit of the rest of us. we create a program called Safety Net Care. It includes some I propose that we authorize our health insurance com- of the best features of managed care and requires those panies to offer a policy called Commonwealth Care Basic. covered to pay according to their means. Today’s providers Currently, the state mandates that all policies cover a long to this population will play a central role in shaping and list of special treatments, such as in vitro fertilization. These defining this health care product. Safety Net Care will be policies cost more than $500 per month. A basic policy could financed by the savings and revenues described above and cost less than half that amount. Other states like New York by resources freed up from today’s Uncompensated Care and California have established similar insurance products. Pool by having two-thirds of the currently uninsured (those Commonwealth Care Basic would be attractive for those who can afford to buy, those eligible for Medicaid, and the who are currently uninsured, because it would provide the unemployed) no longer reliant on it. security of coverage for the most common medical needs at The proposals in Commonwealth Care can bring health a reasonable price. It would also offer small employers a coverage to all our citizens. Just as important, they will plan they could afford to offer their employees. Additional help slow down the rising cost of health care. Common- carrots and sticks would further encourage participation. wealth Care does not call for a tax levy or increase, does not As these people become insured, they contribute new rev- place a mandate on small businesses, and enhances con- enues to the health care system, freeing resources for the sumer choice. More and better ideas may come forward truly needy. over the next few months. I welcome them. The objection to permitting insurers to offer a basic policy has traditionally been that the coverage would not Mitt Romney is governor of Massachusetts. be as good as the current “all bells and whistles” version. Perhaps, but Commonwealth Care Basic would be far better than what the uninsured have now. And shouldn’t we leave it to citizens to decide whether a policy like this counterpoints would meet their needs? There are other ways to bring new revenue to the cause of insuring the uninsured. Some 106,000 of the uninsured actually qualify for Medicaid. Our new one-stop portal and sign-up programs, created in the process of reorganizing Any fix requires human service agencies over the past two years, will move these people into insurance coverage. For these people, mandates or money the cost will be shared 50-50 with the federal government; by john mcdonough every dollar we spend giving these individuals the care they need will draw a matching dollar from the federal government. The state share of this expansion of the Medi- caid rolls is included in our proposed ’05 and ’06 budgets. ear Gov. Romney: First of all, thank you.Your will- Other parts of Commonwealth Care will make our ingness to confront the dual crises of health access health care dollars go further. Another 36,000 people who and affordability has enhanced prospects for reform. are unemployed will get coverage by using our current We may now be on the cusp of a “third wave” of Medical Security Trust to purchase Commonwealth Care Massachusetts health reform, building on gains Basic rather than today’s high-cost COBRA coverage. achieved in 1988 and 1996, progress that has driven The recommendations above represent solutions that our rate of uninsurance to one of the nation’s lowest. apply to two-thirds of the uninsured. The remaining one- DThe Massachusetts health care community wants to third are those who earn too much to qualify for Medicaid work with you and the Legislature to achieve reform. Many

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 99 of us—consumers, hospitals, physicians, nurses, health reason they are not prevalent is because insurers and con- centers, business and labor leaders—already have united sumers don’t want them—and they’re not so affordable behind the Health Access and Affordability Act filed by either. The major, expensive insurance mandates are for Sen.Richard Moore and Rep.Deborah Blumer.Our approach maternity, mental health, and substance abuse. Do you is different from the one you outline here. We believe our really want to see widespread use of products that leave disagreements can be bridged by good faith collaboration. consumers without coverage for these services? Our concerns about your statements are based on actual You mention that New York offers a low-cost basic experience in the policy trenches. Like you, we regard dis- policy. But New York State has heavily subsidized that prod- cussion of policy differences as helpful in reaching the un- uct with state tax dollars. Premiums in the New York pro- derstanding necessary to develop meaningful, lasting gram are low because the state “reinsures” high cost cases changes.We hope health reform becomes the signal accom- with public dollars. The Moore/Blumer Health Access and plishment of your administration. In that spirit, I offer these Affordability Act proposes this same approach. comments, beginning with areas of agreement: Second, please don’t vilify MassHealth clients. Your First, we fully concur with prioritizing the enrollment of comments about “abuse”and “fraud”in Medicaid are wor- low-income individuals who are eligible and unenrolled in risome. If you think there are problems in MassHealth along public programs such as MassHealth. An enrollment cam- these lines, fix them. If there are MassHealth clients who paign could be the first stage of an exciting reform process. don’t qualify for coverage, don’t provide it. You don’t need The health care community identified and enrolled more a statute, regulation, or appropriation. You certainly don’t than 300,000 individuals between 1997 and 2001 until state need insinuations. Unlike welfare, MassHealth clients receive outreach funding was eliminated. While the new one-stop no cash; they receive medically necessary services authorized enrollment portal you mention is welcome, it will not by by licensed health professionals. Throwing around, without itself result in enrollment of all 106,000 people you identify substantiation, charges of fraud simply spreads stigma, as eligible. Full enrollment requires aggressive collaboration which works against your stated desire to sign up people between government and the health community. We are who are eligible but not now enrolled. eager to participate; you need only ask. To inspire confidence in your commitment, you could report the numbers of new ‘Bare bones’ products enrollees monthly. Second, we agree that the cost of health insurance is too aren’t that affordable. high and must be made more affordable.We welcome your commitment to addressing this. One way you could help Instead, focus on real abuse. Since 2003, 500,000 adults now is by ending the state’s chronic underpayment of Mass- on MassHealth can only get dental services when their teeth Health providers who shift their losses from public payers are so rotten they need to be pulled. After they’re pulled, to private payers, causing higher private health insurance the state no longer pays for dentures. And kids? Yes,they’re premiums. Last February, you publicly acknowledged this eligible but your dental program is run so poorly that only problem. When will state government face its responsibil- one in 10 dentists will see a MassHealth kid and only one- ity to provide fair reimbursement to providers for the cost third of those 400,000 kids had their teeth cleaned last of care? year. Your Department of Public Health did an oral health Third, we endorse your call for transparency. Consumers survey of Massachusetts third graders—41 percent of need accurate, useful, and timely information about costs MassHealth kids had untreated cavities and 19 percent had and quality, and your leadership can help make this happen. urgent dental needs. That’s a scandal. We think transparency should also apply to state govern- Third, don’t be so hasty to dismiss the need for man- ment. Your administration spent 18 months developing a dates and new revenues.Your secretary of health and human comprehensive health reform plan—work now laid aside. services (whom you publicly called “the best in the nation” Health Care for All has filed a Freedom of Information re- last February) was right when he told you no significant quest for documents related to this process. Don’t you think, reform could happen without them. Since the state health in calling for transparency, your administration should reform era began in the 1980s, many states have made dra- practice what it preaches? matic gains in affordable coverage. None did it for free. We also have areas of concern: Hawaii has the nation’s highest rate of employer-sponsored First, evidence shows that prospects for pared-down health coverage for a reason—it’s mandatory. Massachusetts insurance products are poor. For example, Blue Cross Blue has one of the lowest rates of uninsurance because we help Shield of Massachusetts already offers a high deductible many who could never afford employer-based coverage. ($5,000) individual insurance product, and state law since One final thought: You have suggested that 2005 will be 1991 allows insurers to offer “bare bones” products. The a good time to get things done because 2006 is an election

100 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 year. Remember that the two watershed access reform laws and due to the extensive 65-year history of government were passed in 1988 and 1996, both election years. The pub- regulation of the health care field. These facts help to explain lic wants health access and affordability problems fixed, and business leaders’ historic and current interest in the state’s they will reward public officials who get it done right, not health policy debate. in a hurry. There’s a lot of goodwill out here to help you get For the past 22 years, the Massachusetts Business Round- it right, if you’re willing to tap into it. table has had a Health Care Task Force, which has done research and made recommendations on health care policy. John McDonough is executive director of Health Care for All. The MBR task force includes executives from the state’s health care insurers, teaching and community hospitals, and large and small companies that are purchasers of health care services. During the 22-year history, four key points have emerged consistently from the deliberations of the Health costs are now task force: • Universal access to basic medical care is a public everyone’s problems responsibility for a society such as ours; by jane walsh and • A basic health care package must be consistent with the government’s ability to fund such care for those with- alan macdonald out adequate means, and also consistent with the goal of controlling inflation in the cost of medical care; • Built into the basic health care package must be strong ov. Mitt Romney, legislative leaders, and health care measures that emphasize individual responsibility for health advocates are to be commended for bringing the care, including provisions for co-payments, deductibles, issue of universal health coverage to the top of this and premium incentives to encourage wellness and reward year’s public agenda. Business leaders welcome this appropriate use of the health care system; and discussion, as we attempt to simultaneously reduce • The best way to achieve universal access to basic med- the increases in health care costs and share in the ical care at a reasonable cost is through a system where con- responsibility to meet the health care needs of our sumers exercise choice in selecting insurers and providers Gemployees. in a competitive market. Business is acutely aware of the importance of this issue In 2002, MBR’s Health Care Task Force released a white for a variety of reasons: 1) Employers provide medical in- paper entitled “Solutions for Massachusetts Health Care,” surance for nearly two-thirds of insured people, and the cost which includes many of the recommendations discussed on of these benefits is increasing at rates far greater than infla- these pages. We agree, for example, that individuals should tion; 2) health care is one of the largest sectors of the Massa- select the lowest cost, most appropriate treatment settings. chusetts economy; 3) health care cost factors affect the com- We agree that technology resources need to be leveraged, not petitiveness of our state’s businesses; and 4) access to quality only to assist providers in delivering more efficient, high- health care is an essential component of quality of life for quality care, but so that consumers can make informed all our citizens. decisions about their health care. We agree it is essential Business, however, does not have a monolithic opinion that, wherever possible, information on both cost and qual- on how to address the issue. In fact, different business ity is available to support a consumer’s selection of health leaders could have very different views depending on the size care provider and treatment options. We agree that the of their business, the wage scale of their industry, and/or the Medicaid reimbursement shortfall is significant and that demographics of their employees. Even with potential the formula needs review and adjustment. This shared differences among employers, though, there are common ground gives us optimism that the goals outlined recently concerns, such as trying to answer the simple question, by Senate President Travaglini, Gov. Romney, and other “Can we afford to pay for out-of-control health care costs public leaders can and will be achieved. that are many times the rate of inflation?” The recommendations in our report are based upon The answer, of course, is that no enterprise can afford to two principles, which we believe will be helpful in guiding pay for increases that are persistently above the rate of the public health care debate in the coming months: 1) All inflation, whether for health care or any other cost item. parties—employers, consumers, providers, payers, gov- Business leaders understand that this is not sustainable, ernment, and advocacy groups—have a shared responsi- and that some form of government intervention may be bility to address this issue, and their various interests must necessary to bring health care costs under control, due to be bridged so that no one constituency is at a competitive the mix of public and private payers for health care services, disadvantage by disproportionately bearing the expense

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 101 of providing health care in Massachusetts; and 2) all concerned parties must understand the costs and impact of individual health care decisions. Consumers currently utilize health care resources without access to data or any objective provider performance comparisons to understand the cost or quality impact of their decisions. It is incumbent upon all responsible parties to commit to developing consistent measures, based upon understandable quantitative data, to increase awareness among consumers and providers and to assist them in decision making. Employers, insurers, and providers must join together to educate and inform consumers in order to assure them that providing appropriate care in an appropriate setting is not just about cost shifting but about the wiser use of limited resources and greater personal responsibility and well-being. Wherever possible, information on both cost and quality must be made available to support consumers’ selection of health care providers and treatment options. By introducing the empowered consumer into the process, employers hope to activate a new element of cost control while meeting their responsibility to contribute to health coverage for their employees. The goals that have been set by our state leaders can be achieved if all the affected parties work together to achieve them. Such a shared effort and understanding can begin to control escalating health care costs, while meeting the fundamental obligation to provide universal access to affordable health care in Massachusetts.

Jane Walsh is president of Northmark Bank and chairman of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable’s Health Care Task Force; Alan Macdonald is executive director of the Massachusetts Business Roundtable.

Expanding insurance is a matter of value(s) by jon kingsdale

pparently,one of the New Year’s resolutions on Beacon Hill is: “health insurance for (almost) all.” Gov. Romney and Senate President Travaglini have committed publicly to increasing the number of citizens with health insurance; Sen.Moore,Senate chairman of the Health Care Committee, and a coalition of advocates, led by John McDonough’s organization, recentlyA filed legislation that proposes to go further. Health

102 CommonWealth WINTER 2005 plans based here in Massachusetts support universal access to cover those workers. Given the high cost of coverage to insurance and look forward to the opportunity to work now and the threat of higher costs to come, this is a major with the governor and legislative leaders to fulfill this disagreement. promise. While there are substantial benefits to bringing thou- Gov. Romney is right to stress cost control as key to re- sands of Massachusetts residents into the mainstream of ducing the number of uninsured. In doing so, he underscores health care, there is a cost as well. Notwithstanding the re- the core question of value: How do we wring more value out cent Urban Institute report of a relatively modest net cost of health coverage, so that more individuals, employers, for covering the uninsured in Massachusetts—$834 per and taxpayers are able to—and will choose to—buy it? adult per year, after deducting current costs of the uninsured The tie between controlling cost and expanding insur- to “the system”—the financial burden on those not now ance coverage is inextricable.Very simply, if we cannot afford paying cannot be trivialized. Small-group health insurance to do it, we won’t. Let’s not forget that Massachusetts already premiums in Massachusetts are approaching $5,000 per enacted universal coverage once, in 1988, only to repeal it as person per year for comprehensive benefits. unaffordable, in 1995. Compelling employers to pay such amounts is partly a How can we increase the value of health coverage? Here matter of values. The advocates argue that we must, as a are some of the ways: matter of principle, bear this burden; the governor pledges • Increase choice in insurance products by reducing no new taxes or mandates on private spending. Thus, a pri- mandated benefits; mary principle powering expansion—that we assure equal • Develop comparable information on the cost and qual- access for all to essential medical care—meets the oppos- ity of competing providers; ing principle of championing individual over centralized • Encourage consumer selection of the most cost-effective providers; If values are translated • Develop standards of evidence-based medical practice; • Reform malpractice liability to encourage reporting of into financial terms, we medical errors and stimulate the practice of evidence-based medicine; and can seek out middle, • Reduce reliance on the Uncompensated Care Pool by strictly enforcing eligibility requirements and treating if not common, ground. patients in the most appropriate settings. Gov. Romney endorses many of these reforms. No doubt control of personal decisions and private resources. they will be resisted, but the less we do to reduce the cost of Value politics are generally the least susceptible to com- health care, the harder it will be to induce more people to promise (think abortion, death penalty). Fortunately, in this buy it and convince taxpayers to fund it. case,differences in values can be translated into dollars,which If significantly increasing access to affordable health in- are far more amenable to compromise. For example, the em- surance requires controlling medical costs, it also raises a ployer’s cost to “play” could be less than $5,000 per person question of values: Do we in the Commonwealth care enough if we reduced mandated benefits.As Senate President Trav- to commit additional resources to assuring equal access to aglini has said, “We can cover everyone, but we can’t cover mainstream medicine? Doing so requires spending more everything.” And the employer’s penalty for not “playing” dollars here, and fewer elsewhere. could be reduced to less than the average price of health It means expanding access to Medicaid, as both the gov- insurance. ernor and the advocates propose. It also means subsidizing If our political leaders translate their differences over val- low-wage workers and their employers to purchase private ues into financial terms, they can seek out middle, if not health insurance. The governor refers with enthusiasm to the common, ground. Conversely, if each camp holds true to “Healthy NY” insurance program, which subsidizes access its own principle—one side refusing to consider any new to private insurance and eliminates some mandated bene- mandate on employers while the other refuses to consider fits for eligible segments of the small-group and non-group coverage that costs less than $5,000 per person—then the (individual) market.The advocates also borrow from Healthy perfect will be the death of the good. NY, including its most innovative—and expensive—ele- The test of our resolve to press forward through this ment, state subsidy of catastrophic claims. thicket of policy challenges may be the willingness of each Where the governor and the advocates appear to disagree camp to compromise its most cherished principle. most fundamentally is over the so-called “play or pay” mandate. This requires most employers to finance group in- Jon Kingsdale is senior vice president for planning and develop- surance for their employees (to “play”), or to pay the state ment at Tufts Health Plan.

WINTER 2005 CommonWealth 103 HELP WANTED

One-third of Massachusetts workers aren’t prepared for the New Economy. We are doing something about this. MassINC’s New Skills for a New Economy Awareness and Action Campaign is:

• Collaborating with Commonwealth Corporation and the

Massachusetts Department of Education to launch Getting the LiteracyWorks, an entrepreneurial approach to mobilizing JOBDone Advancing the New Skills Agenda more community support for ABE/ESOL classes in Hampden County and Lawrence, MA.

• Helping to lead the effort to make community colleges more accessible to working adults and train workers for jobs in high growth industries through the Reach Higher Initiative.

Visit www.massinc.org for a free copy of our white paper Getting the Job Done: Advancing the New Skills Agenda. To learn more about the Campaign, call 617-742-6800 x106, or visit www.massinc.org and click on the NSNE logo.